Has this always been quite rare?

I flew ADD-FRA on LH and connected to DL from FRA-ATL-GNV back in 2000 (yes, a long time ago). At check-in for Delta I asked how much to upgrade to BE...after hearing the cost I politely declined. When I showed up at the gate I was paged and the woman that had checked me in at the ticket counter was there and handed me a new boarding pass for a seat in BE. Turns out she was from a town in Ethiopia about 30 miles from where I had been working down there. Lucky me for getting her at the ticket counter!

So of course I knew this was totally lucky for me...but now reading how unusual an upgrade is, I hope she didn't get in trouble for this.