I think I must be misunderstanding this, but say you had 4 in F, they'd only load 6 mains max? There's usually 5 options including main course salad (?), so it just takes 1 person to want same meal as you and you could be out of luck? How does that work with a load of 2? Surely they cannot only load 3 meals and try to guess which 2 of 5 won't be in demand?! Being able to pre-order is not an excuse because that only applies to 50% of the flights (ex-LON)!

I had assumed I had been unlucky to not get first choice in the past, but mathematically speaking you'd be lucky to get first choice if less than 50% load, or in 787 F.