For those who are interested.
I'm booking my annual holiday season flight to Brasil.
AA doesn't have the lowest upgradable fares (N) anywhere close to the days I need, so the lowest upgradable fare is about $1500 to $1800 verses $2200 (M) on DL. DL has Z inventory available and AA has C availability.
Just an example. The difference between eVIPs and PMUs is there, but not necessarily as large as some make it out to be since AA has limited the number of N bucket seats on many destinations