I have been buying tickets for my wife, high school age daughter and daughter who is away at college to travel between now and the end of the year and have some observations about flying AA with no status.
Living in STL if you choose not to fly AA then the best option is more than likely WN. In fact, my last two trips were on WN because it was just more convenient and cheaper than AA and I did not need the miles to make EXP. I haven't flown WN in years and I was pleasantly surprised by how pleasant it was and by how many of the passengers were business people as opposed to the so called Kettles.
First we have the obvious which is AA has bag fees and change fees. Having to pay AA bag fees for my family does bother me when there is an alternative. My college kid is on WN for good ( unless on an award ) as I am done paying change fees for her ( yes this is my problem).
I have also learned a lot about seating on AA for non status passengers. I have bought three deep discount tickets recently and have not been able to book seats for them in advance. Unless the flight is very empty AA has blocked so many seats that non status passengers can't book them. The tickets I bought last night for wife and younger kid had 7s in every fare bucket and EF is showing plenty of seats but none for my non status people.
It is kind of frustrating to have to tell them they don't have seats and will have to wait until they get to the airport ( most likely the gate) before they get seats and I am not optimistic that they will sit together. I assume they can do advance check in without an assigned seat so at least they won't have to wait in line at the counter. If they check in at 24 hours on WN they have a good chance of sitting together and won't have to wait around at the gate to be called for a seat at the last moment ( and will probably get a space for their carry on luggage ).
I don't have to call AA on a non elite number but I can imagine the wait which I would contrast WN which is pretty much answered right away.
Having said all this I guess my point is that as I close in on 8 million miles (which I should make by next year this time) I find myself buying my family (and occasionally myself) WN tickets and finding that the experience is more economical and better than doing it on AA. If I did not fly so much internationally I can easily see myself on the A List with a companion pass.
AA needs to compete not only with UAL and Delta but with WN if they are going to survive and right now it seems they are loosing on both fronts.
I'm not going to tackle all of this. But your point about seating is just inaccurate. WN doesn't have seat assignments so I'd say any seat assignment compete favorably to that (except for those who like the whole free-for-all situation). UA blocks the entire Economy Plus cabin and exit rows from non-status passengers. I believe this generally represents far more than what AA blocks (except on maybe a few select routes). DL certainly blocks an enormous amount of seats, as does US. On a 50-seat CRJ with about 15 seats open in rows 1-7 - there was not a single one that could be booked by a non-status passengers. Same for exit row 8.
You can't expect EXP benefits just because they are your family members when you aren't traveling with them. And protecting better seats for elites/full-fare travelers is exactly what the airline should be doing. The vast majority of passengers who don't fit into that category are those who choose 90% based on a price relative to schedule continum and 10% or less brand loyalty.