i continue to be impressed by how unfriendly the responses are on this board sometimes-- i often think that because United is so mean to us we are often so mean to people who post reasonable questions. i really didn't see any whining in the original question, to be honest.

anyway, i'm with the OP on this one-- it's simply a timing issue...
if he'd booked a ticket in March for September it'd be no problem, right? why should a February ticket booked in August be any different? if a customer is willing to tie up their $$ so far in advance and have already earned the upgrade instrument they're going to use in order to do this, i see no reason why United shouldn't take his money, process the upgrade now, and lift the cert later--agents sometimes inadvertently do this anyway, so it's definitely possible from an IT perspective.

let's not confuse this issue with the question of upgrades vs. paid business seats--- that's controlled via IM and not by the availability and usability of one type of upgrade instrument (miles) vs. another (SWUs). if UA is willing to give out NC seats, this is not relevant. from this perspective, i think this may be a poor business decision on UA's part not to be more flexible about this...