I have also noticed a change in the clearing of the waitlist. I fly once a month YYZ-FRA and with the exception of 1 time earlier this year, I have been confirmed upgraded at around the T-4 window. And except this past roundtrip (YYZ-FRA last week, FRA-YYZ today) - both cases, I was only cleared after boarding had started.

On a side note: it looks like people still have a lot of eUpgrade credits to burn - according to the agent, there were 28 people on the upgrade wait list for the FRA-YYZ flight today. The agent ended up announcing that Elites should just board the plane as there were too many SEs in front of them on the list.