I wanted to play with aksdal, sun, xnerd, jimhalpert, binkles, WN, MB... even nofear and SIU that hate me, those guys. they're not really here anymore. I tried contacting everyone when I returned but it's not a thing for them I guess.
Otherwise you are correct. Everyone is vanilla. You have the option to receive a different power up each SOD. A mushroom can be stacked with more mushrooms, but only if you have a mushroom and then receive another the next day. A fire flower grows more powerful the longer you hold on to it. So there is a bit of strategy in deciding whether you want to receive a new power up each day.