Returning to the original posting:

I suspect there is some form of advance seat placement in SQ. It was weird when I logged in 47h 59 min before my flight on SQ 227 from SYD to SIN and all the good seats on the 744 was taken... incl bulkhead, exit row 41. There were whole sections that was listed as "occupied". I know SQ would do assignments for PPS, but not getting a single aisle seat from row 32 to 40 was ridiculous.