Thank you both very much, I'm on 292/293 normally, but I guess the 'takeaway' here--which will surprise no one--is that it's futile to search for uncrowded planes in the year 2011. (Although I do still sometimes find them domestically..)

Now, on my BA flights last year I paid (a lot) extra to select J seats in advance. Would you still be required to pay for seat selection when there is in fact only one seat available in your class of travel? No, you wouldn't have to, but what I'm asking is if it could happen? IIRC it was something like $80 extra per flight.

Also, where does ExpertFlyer get its data? From the airlines, obviously, but how do they rate to get what Orbitz, for example, cannot?