1) when booking it wasn't made clear that elite benefits were not going to carry through. in fact i remember asking some questions about moving people to seats closer to the front, but were unable to due to availability.
2) the dumbest thing is we actually paid more for the group booking - $20 a ticket - but i thought it was worthwhile to get the above...
3) apparently the splitting a group is a normal thing for groups. seems like a strange policy - according to one of the service reps i spoke to its because groups run on an old system. but maybe they were trying to reconcile bag fees.

/i