Just to add a datapoint on the side of this maybe being a glitch:
This weekend I did DFW-SFO, the upgrade didn't clear, and I did upgrade standby when checking in at the kiosk. At the gate I was not on the upgrade list at all. I didn't bother following up (EF had shown F1 A0 for this flight for a while, and I booked it late, so I figured the upgrade had no chance anyway).
Seemingly unrelated, but still, something clearly went wrong with the upgrade processing.