Great summary, ozstamps!
If someone is watching from UA Web Support...
The UA Award booking option would be even better if users with Advanced in their profile were able to see availability for all flights on a given day, even if there were no saver awards available in the class requested. Alternatively, if there were an "ALL" option for class of service which would provide similar information (including upgrades). This would make it easier to find information on saver awards without having to try every class of service, and would solve the problem of not being able to find out if there are upgrades whenever there are no saver awards available.