AA still does it that way (at least for Gold and Plat, and even EXPs can still uncheck the upgrades I think though they may default checked now). AA Gold and Plat have to use preciuos "stickers" for upgrades, and thus want to be able to choose which flights to (try to) use htem on and which flights not to use them on.

There's an easy solution for your dislike of automatic upgrades. Stop flying just one airline all the time. You'll have low status on lots of airlines rather than high status on one. Most of your upgrades will go to someone with higher status, problem solved! (And, in turn,you're realize that upgrades at different airline work differently, so you won't write posts on FT that make it sound like they all works the same just because you don' t have a varied enough experience.)