No, no, and absolutely no.

Back in my day, where you actually had to use currency called e500 if you wanted to be upgraded, me, a lowly 2P, was able to sit up front every so often. Not just on short hops, but on trans-cons. It wasn't often. And it certainly was not as often as those exalted 1Ks. But it was enough to be sticky. And turn this 2P into a 1K over time.

Once you got on the waitlist, you weren't jumped by those with higher status. You were in a FIFO queue (yes, I know about the PA/PB lists) that bumped you up when it was your turn.

The loyalty program worked.

Let me repeat that again, the loyalty program worked to stick me to an airline and give it money. It would not have worked if all of the upgrades went to those with highest status. The reason it worked is that it felt equitable, felt like even the little guy has a shot.

Let's compare this to the quote above. The quote is dangerously close to an entitlement -- that the higher class deserve upgrades by virtue of being a higher class. Taken to the logical conclusion, R space should go away, and all UG should be done at the gate (which, for CPU, I actually agree with!)

MP has a fine line to walk here. They have to give the little guy a chance to stick. If you consistently give the GS/1K stuff you do two things: you create an entitlement attitude (which this 1K -- me, not OP -- is guilty of) where you engender negative feelings (like the OP expressed) when an UG does not come through AND you discourage the early-career travelers from even trying. The loyalty program would not work. Anecdotes (which is not a synonym for data) seem to indicate the latter.

In this humble 1K view, the pendulum has swung too far in the higher status direction and needs to swing back a bit, not even more forward.