Mrs. AK-Bird-Brain :
I agree, there are basic techniques that should be mastered by anyone hatching for the first time. And I am by no means an expert at hatching, even though I've hatched my fair share of chicks. I will clarify that, for me, hatching in a carton speeds up the clean up process immensely because I don't have to spend time picking up all the little shards of shell. I use the rubber shelf liner over 1/4" hardware cloth, then set the cartons on top. Whatever shell is not caught by the carton is then rolled up in the liner, which is then shaken out and washed in the washing machine (air dried). Then the disinfecting of the hatcher or incubator with a diluted bleach solution commences. I did not mean to imply that I skipped the disinfecting process by stating that clean up was a cinch.
I've tried to hatch 40 eggs at once on their sides, and the first few chicks that hatch are usually lawn-bowling with the other eggs that haven't hatched yet. It disrupts their hatching process, sometime wedging them into other eggs so tight that they can't get out. Especially with the quail. I admit I was reluctant to try it at first, because it was so "controversial", but now I don't understand what the hub-bub is all about... new technologies are popping up all the time that improve the processes we do on a daily basis... why can't it apply to hatching eggs, too? Just because the big big big walk-in incubators aren't built to hatch in a carton doesn't mean they can't, or shouldn't. Not every incubator can accommodate a carton, like the LG. Even the Hovabator has limited headroom. But if you have a cabinet hatcher, or a homemade, the cartons make it a lot easier. Just my humble opinion... take it or leave it.
Y'all are perfectly free to do what you want with your eggs.
But I will challenge statements that suggest that *rolling around* in any way harms or inhibits hatching. There is no evidence for this, and plenty of evidence that suggests it isn't so.
This is a BYC fad ..... for which there is nothing more than a small amount of anecdotal evidence.
It really doesn't matter how big a commercial incubator is. They hatch chickens in trays that have a capacity of 200 eggs. Quite honestly, the only thing that matters to a chick, is the proximity of it's immediate neighbors, and that is probably the same in a 300 egg Sportsman, as a 500 000 egg commercial set up.
As I said .... newbies need the whole story, not just the latest *good idea*
But this hatching was something of an experiement anyway because the eggs I'd used were from hens that are pretty young and so I'm thinking maybe there was an issue with the eggs. After day 18 I did keep them in the carton but cut the carton back like shown in the last picture so they're sitting up right but not leaning any more.. 
