Many thanks for the background information
I'm adding my voice of thanks for sharing what you can about Reservation and related operations and policies.
I had reason to call Reservations today, I'm a General Member. It sounded as though I reached the Philippine office (based on accent, both the agent and the service director). I'll say that they were good-natured and kind in their responses, and the service director explained things clearly. By the way--the agent did nothing wrong, my question resulted in an action that required the next level of approval.
It helped to have that background information; there's an office in the PI (I'm accustomed to India), and that the next level is not necessarily termed "supervisor". I've long grown accustomed to the names of agents being fictitious, I am learning to say "how can I identify you?" if I want to mention the agent in other correspondence.
So again, a word of thanks and appreciation for your efforts here at Flyertalk.