Flipped around, what's the logic of doing it any earlier than at the gate (or perhaps a few hours out)? Yeah, I get that elites would prefer to know ASAP, but in the end how much do you distinguish between an upgrade at T-48 and an upgrade at the gate? One glass of cheap wine and it's irrelevant.

And while 4/12 is extreme, I do really wonder why they tend to go to 10/12 at T-24 in a lot of cases and 11/12 at T-3, if not 12/12. Any time there are irrops or even just a misconnect it has the potential to create a further mess with downgrades and such (and I'd really not want to lose an upgrade where I get some E- middle instead of an E+ aisle desirable seat.)