What the agent said was that all the people in the BC line were EXP therefore I should stand in line with them. They were in fact using all the BC and FC check in counters to serve this line until FC passengers showed up and went straight to the FC counter.

I've never seen this guy at the counter. An American in a suit on the passenger side of the counter. He explicitly said that FC passengers had priority in the line over EXP.

Of all the times going thru NRT this is the first time it happened. If I had not had 6 pieces of luggage with me (and wife and kid)I probably would not really have minded but since you have to have your bags Xrayed before check in and loose your cart at that point it made for a messy process.