I tend to find that when one sees elderly people in the Emergency Exit seats, that these people have often not requested them, and they seem as surprised/perplexed as anyone that they have them, and it is usually down to not-interested third party check-in workers. Similarly, when I witness people get into the EE seats, and then try and jam a bag into the space in front of them, and keep their laptop on them, etc, that these people were also randomly assigned them, whether they spoke English or not, and again this is often due to uncaring 3rd party workers, or simply because these were the only seats left. What I can say is that concerning BA, once upon a time when they had a lot more actual BA employees at outstations, that this happened far less then it does today.