I think the looking at the manifest at that point is because they are in the "name-learning" phase before they have them all memorized (one of the many impressive parts of the CX service I feel).

I like the two-part bags - got one somewhere on my mad mileage run at the end of June. The best this about them is that they are so easy to pack when you split them apart. Normally I forget to leave space in my carryon for the 3 or 4 amenity bags I can collect on one of those runs, but this one effectively requires no space at all since the two parts just slide down an edge/corner.