Originally Posted by
lhgreengrd1
There are two choices - either you award boarding priority on the basis of status and amount paid, or you do it on the basis of efficiency of the entire process. You cannot blend the two in a haphazard manner and still have a "reasonable" set of rules. The rules are either there to maximize efficiency, or they are there to maximize airline revenue and perks to the most loyal customers - which also has a long-term revenue maximizing effect. They can't do both simultaneously.
While they can't optimize both, they can certainly create an optimum for the joint measure (that is, provide the maximum perks subject to not losing much efficiency, or the maximum efficiency consistent with lots of perks, or something in between). It's the airline's decision how to do that.
If we had a competitive society in reality, airlines that made the wrong decision would be out-competed by those that made better choices.