Oh, perhaps your firm's travel policy is more lenient than what I've experienced - for flights over $10k it went on a list for our boss's eyes and approval. If it was booked in advance, not an issue but if it was booked last minute, they would scrutinize and in some sense disapprove of extraneous costs incurred.
Anyhow, I'm on an R fare class confirmed in Premium Plus and 1K. If there are GS onboard, I'd imagine they're like you where the firm is paying for biz class so no need to use GPU upgrades.
This trip is a holiday trip for me so I wanted to make use of my GPUs and enjoy the EWR Polaris lounge and hard product on the plane. Fingers crossed!