I had forgotten about these benefits when I booked a MR from AUS-DFW-SEA-ANC-SEA-DFW-AUS for this past weekend. The SEA-ANC-SEA AS flights were PACKED and having (preferred) seats up near the front certainly came in handy, especially since the plane was a 737-900! I was wondering why our BPs had our AA Elite status printed on them!
As a side note, having just gotten off of an AA 737, flying F, I really did notice how much more pitch AA affords in F vs. AS..