Thanks for a very valuable clarification.

In the "who cares" Department: If I had taken the ticketed scheduled flight, which left on time, and arrived at IAH 12 minutes late (which after waiting the 10 mins for gate checked luggage) would have left approx 9 minutes to travel from B term to E-6. Anyone here up for a run like that?

The unacceptable part to me is that some agents would have denied my "thinking out of the box" in order to avoid a possible misconnect in IAH that turned into a very real one for anyone on the original itinerary. The idea that a gold or plat ("the bread and butter" sound bite without teeth) would be denied a free earlier flight is just beyond me. So my message to anyone anyone from CO who is listening would be....don't tell us how valuable we are, just show us. When a request is not unreasonable, don't make us feel like we should be penalized. Again, I was lucky.