While it is common to charge for seats across the board, what is not common is to charge even your most loyal flyers. That was my point. Especially on an airline like EK where the "loyalty" is coming only from EK and QF, not an alliance of carriers.
Even non-LCC American and European airlines allow free selection of the best seats for their top tier customers. But hey let's instead make it free for everyone at OLCI, so the once a year super saver flyer has the same opportunity of getting the seat as a Plat on a flex fare.