thepla,

I can understand your frustration. In March, I was flying LGA-DFW with my husband. I had the beginning of a thunderous migraine, and, since upgrades were not available, I begged the gate agent to block the middle seat on the 3-side (it was a Stupid-80), so perhaps I could lie down a bit. We're both Platinum. She answered with the standard line: "We'll try, but it depends on how full we are". Fair enough. Of course our middle seat was given away. After take-off, I counted at least 25 empty seats, of which the great majority were middle ones.
Needless to say, I had a truly miserable time for the rest of the day. No complaint letter would take away that migraine...

What to do? Despite many decent gate agents, FA's, reservation agents, you still find some who just don't care... I have had other similar experiences on at least half of the AA flights I've taken since the beginning of the year...

You, however, have a better case. AA should refund you the 4 upgrade stickers since you were willing to fly coach in the first place.
I wish you luck.