You say you don't want a conversation about "upgrades don't exist" scenario but I think that is the real issue. Debating over what upgrade policy should be is pretty academic.
If I were an airline in a properly functioning market and with good management / strategic practices, my goal would be to aim to keep upgrades to as few as possible. Upgrades exist because the US carriers cannot get enough people to pay for the front cabins reliably.
If you see a route where upgrades are rampant and we have to debate the particulars of how fliers should be allocated the F seats that couldn't be sold, there's a problem of:
-- over-gauging the aircraft type for the paid traffic
-- mis-pricing of the fare buckets
-- unwillingness of passengers to pay what it takes to operate the route profitably
-- operational failures exacerbating some/all of the above
Those issues would be better addressed to help UA fix things, I think....
Last edited by TA; Apr 8, 2016 at 11:09 pm