unfortunatly there are too many agents who
are lazy and they don't do their jobs correctly. Although I have to
say there is some circumstances that I can
think of when my J cabin has been full and everyone checked in and I get 3 or 4 noshows
at the gate. I have had people ask about upgrades and I have told them no I am sorry it is full and they have boarded the aircraft. Unfortunatly in situations like this when the J class passengers don't show up then I usually don't have time to run onboard and upgrade people so the plane goes out with empty J seats. So to the SE in the back it looks like I was lying to them. Now I hardly think this was the case in your scenario because I can't see 50% of the people noshowing. Anyways I just had to rant a little I find that some of the gate agents are people who don't do gates very often or don't feel confident in what they are doing so they want as little stress as possible. That is no excuse for not doing their job but unfortunatley that is the way it is.