I'm confused with all the back-and-forth and various situations. This is what I understand:

1) If an elite reserves an exit row seat, then the seat next to him is blocked ONLY for non-elites; other elites can view and reserve the adjacent seat. This is an enhancement as previously adjacent exit-row seats were blocked to ALL.
2) If an elite reserves a non-exit row seat, then the adjacent seat remains blocked to ALL.

Am I getting this correct?

I could understand if AA removed the seat blocking benefit for elites on exit row seats only, but if they did this throughout the cabin, that's a pretty big reduction in benefit.

I actually just reserved an exit row seat on an upcoming flight and noticed that the adjacent seat was NOT blocked, but I originally attributed this to the fact that my travel agent made the reservation and maybe AA hadn't yet realized I was elite.