The part that I don't like -- and which I see as being dishonest/deceptive -- is that the "1 seat left at this price" is deliberately meant to convey the impression that "this is it" and it's never coming back, when that is not the case at all. In reality, it means "1 seat left" from a section/subset of that fare class at a given moment of time. As you rightly point out, long before the flight leaves other seats in the fare class or higher fare classes will become available at the same or lower price. The "1 seat left at this price" box is an inaccurate pressure tactic.

I'm also not so sure the algorithm is as simple as you suggest. We don't really know how it works yet. Let's say you or I bought the max number of "available" Flex tickets on a flight that had many seats still open. Are there going to be Flex flights available tomorrow? Are they going to be higher priced than the ones you/I bought today, or is the price going to be identical? Furthermore, how does AC determine how many Flex seats to open up at a time on their flights? And why are they now dolling them out in small pieces, which is new? I am nervous about what the advantage AC gets out of this new system is going to be. Are they going to put a price mark-up on every Flex ticket every time a small section of seats gets down to "1 ticket left at this price?" I think it will be some time before all of the implications of this are clear but I'm not optimistic.