Echoing everyone else have been saying: Rate desk absolutely rocks. They are not your typical reservation agent, who probably spend majority of their time making simple roundtrip reservations or assigning seats. Rather, they deal with complex transaction, such as multi-city, multi-airline, or changes to PNR that's more than mundane. The agents there actively review the situation and make sure the best fare is applied.
Being that they are a part of the back office function, it's unrealistic to have top-tier members have direct contact with them. However, a smart GS/1K agent would send over the complex reservation over to the rate desk immediately as opposed to just say "The Computer Says NO".