I think you made the right choice. In my recent involuntary downgrade from TATL J to Y, AA told me that the decide who to screw based on revenue. Award tickets count as $0 revenue.

I originally booked my trip on IB and I switched to AA to save $70 in taxes. Yeah. That didn't work out too well for me. I dunno if an oversold IB would have treated me better than an oversold AA, but I do know that IB is an EU carrier and I would have been better off under EU rules.