As this "something positive" comes in the context of a flight cancellation, a lost upgrade, a rebooked trip that got the traveler to her destination many hours later than planned, then a further multi-hour delay on the replacement flight causing a misconnect, then an agent who resisted an OAL rebook solution until the OP pointed out the existence of alternate space... I don't think I'd be saying "Thanks, United!"
If this counts as a relative customer service victory, UA customers are pretty starved for good news.