Agreed. Clear the handshakes as fast as possible. Each clearing of the combined Cave/cannon nets 10-15 bells. If you have 100 friends and they all followed the same tactic, it would net you 1000-1500 Bells per day just for clearing the cannon/cave alone (so technically, you could get all prizes without firing a single shot if that was done since day 1)
It's a bit of big numbers theorem an a bit of a pyramid scheme. So when people panic that they won't get everything, they just aren't looking at all the logical opportunities to maximize bell return (remember, it doesn't Matter how many elves you get rid of, unless you want bragging rights on the leaderboards; bell accumulation is the only currency that matters)