Provide the head start functionality to smart campaigns as well

So, your first assumption about existing workarounds is not correct. It may seem that the "Head Start" feature for Email Programs is the same as:

-Using a static list x and the "member of list x" filter as your Smart List for the program

-Using a Smart Campaign with flow step #1 actually a "wait until" the schedule time you want emails to go out in flow step #2.

In reality, that is not correct. We have done additional engineering work for the "Head Start" feature that will actually provide better performance than both of these workarounds. We've tailored the Email Program feature to ensure that once we hit the scheduled time, EVERYTHING has been done ahead of time and that emails are actually being injected into the MTAs and out to the internet. This would not be the case with either of these workarounds (only some parts of the campaign flow would be avoided).

I am working on adding this to Smart Campaigns as well, it's just more complicated than Email Programs since there are all different type of flow steps that can be present, as well as scheduling considerations. Under the hood, it works differently than our Email Program. I will keep you updated but I don't have an ETA for this right now.