Well, I have been nothing but polite in the three instances that I called sshrc in the past month or so, and they didn't seem to mind my asking about the results. I didn't call the school of graduate studies yet.
That being said, delayed gratification in academia for me has been more of the work-two-months-on-a-paper-feeling-at-times-miserable-and-then-high-at-the-end kind. Not of the kind where you have to decline a preferred admission offer and decide over the next weekend about relocating the week after because of sshrc's one month delay in providing the results.
On the practical reasons for calling sshrc (i.e.: "still, what difference does it make if you call?"): perhaps it doesn't help more than it helps pressing an elevator's button compulsively when you're in a hurry, but it's a coping strategy. Besides, it seems to me that there's only administrative work to be done to post the results (the decisions are obviously made by now), so, my hypothesis is that receiving many calls might determine them to move their asses. Or, if not, they get the message: "YOU'RE FUCKING LATE!!!" (from our polite, educated selves over the phone).