Originally Posted by
star_world
You are wrong on the last part - they absolutely do clear standbys into E- now by default as part of the automated process. See for yourself next time you're standing at a gate with some time to spare. This might have been true at some time in the past but it's not true now. You can either look at the cleared standbys screen, or the seatmap itself.
That doesn't jive with my recent experience (< 30 days ago) when a non-Elite standby cleared into E+ right next to me, and there were tons of open seats in the back.