I suppose now you can eat them whenever you like, but I would still prefer to wait to Good Friday to eat a hot cross bun, but I always forget to bake them!
You can't buy them here in Denmark, but we have glorious sticky cream buns for the Monday of Shrove week and they have been on sale for ages now, as are Easter eggs.
No-one keeps Lent here, as it is a predominantly Protestant country.
I feel it spoils a holiday, when we can get Christmas things in November and Easter eggs in February. Others feel that January and February are such dreary months that we need cheering up.