I had an equally frustrating experience with a happy end to the story on Thursday. I was connecting from a small city via ATL to MCO, and called at 8 AM that day to see what I could do about moving from a 6 PM flight to a 2 PM departure connecting to the 6:15 PM ATL-MCO flight. Wanted to SDC, but apparently my ticket was too low fare...different gripe...but anyway....

The agent on the phone indicated that for the ATL-MCO leg I was the only one on standby with "plenty of seats open" at 8 AM. By 5 PM when I showed up at the ATL gate for that flight, I was 14/25 for 7 open seats. I watched the screen anyway, despite feeling that it would be hopeless, since I was already there at the gate. As the flight finished boarding and they started clearing standbys, I became #7 with 2 open seats showing on the screen. And yet, they kept calling names after the first 2, and lucky me, I made it on the flight (not only that, but in an exit row window seat!). The experience was a great lesson in what a complete, inexplicable lottery this process has become.