I'm a lowly nobody these days and so I almost always board later and the overheads are pretty much always full. I have no problems with gate checking my bag once this happens but FAs seem to never want to do this. They always tell me to go find some space in the back/front and I mostly end up standing in the back galley waiting for people to board so I can get back to the front where sometimes I find space and sometimes I don't and end up gate checking my bag anyway.

So again, my question is: why are the FAs so unwilling to gate check bags?