<font face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size="2">It would be really easy for them to fix: stop selling flights with a scheduled plane change as a single flight number. </font>
I'd second that, for a slightly different reason. More mileage.
BOS-ORD-NRT as AA153 counts as 6,702 miles, but if you take an ealier BOS-ORD flight so the trip is broken up into 2 diff. flight numbers, the mileage increases to 7,141 miles immediately. I hate the idea of losing miles.