That's fine as well. Don't you think a Diamond traveling with family (young kids) who are scattered about should be given priority to (most) anyone without a seat assignment?

The problem is that it takes too much time and effort to move people twice. IE my family into new seats and standby's into our seats. Its more efficient to just move the standbys into those blocked seats.

And, yes, SOMETIMES those standbys are Elites (still think a booked family should have preference to someone just trying to get home a few hours early), but in my 3-7 segments a week the bulkheads get filled with "regular joes" who fly once or twice a year. You can look at the "seats assigned" on the overhead and all those bulkheads seats are zone 4. What does that tell you?