There used to be a separate small line with a couple of actually employed by UA agents on the right side of the premier line to help with issues. The ones by the regular bank of chickens are contracted (Airserv, mabye?), and can't do much other than check ID and tag bags, IME, but maybe they could have helped you to obtain a BP. But I agree they are hard to get, I've stood there for a good 5-10 minutes at times waiting for one of them to come and tag my bag, they don't seem to ever see people waiving hands, etc, and are often too engrossed in personal convo's with other employees to bother doing their actual jobs.

Personally, if I was having an issue checking in and couldn't get any employee's attention, I would have just gone into the bus. class line and gotten help from an agent on that desk.