And, exactly, Roadrunner, if the Elite lines get clogged with non-elites calling, then the elite-lines end up just being general lines.

Let's look at this from another perspective.

The reps need to spend the time to field a call, spend a minute or two to pull up the info, recognize the caller isn't elite, re-direct the caller, re-set the reservation system, and start over.

Yes, individually, the time spent is short, but cumulatively, this adds up.

The next person could be *you* who is left waiting in the dial-in queue, while the airline rep is off re-directing Mr./Ms. Non-Elite Caller to the correct number...

... And when upgrade/award/standby/flight re-routed seats are down to the last one or two on a particular flight, who needs to be on hold for a few minutes longer?

Automate a phone system to dial in the digits of your FF account number and ZIP code (or some other identifying protocol) in order to properly route the calls? Sure - as if I wasn't helping to keep "my" airlines flying by paying their fares, I've now got to subsidize a telecom system for them to provide me prompt and dedicated service, a perk intrinsic to FF elitedom? (Those of you who are familiar with implementation and cost of telecom know we are not talking about drilling a hole in the wall for an extra wall jack and buying some extra telephone cord and an answering machine).

Let's just keep the elite hotline phone numbers in our wallets or black books or Palmpilots, whose content we don't usually wantonly share with others anyway, particularly anonymous others.