As someone who non-revs all the time - I'll be the first to support the OP here. This was definitely not handled right and I admire the OP's restraint. I might have been hauled away by the police in that situation.....

Is there any chance they didn't give the first class seats to non-revs (meaning employees traveling for leisure) but to some other class of non rev traveler (executive traveling for business, pilots deadheading or similar). Because honestly I can see a GA losing their job for sticking NRSA's in first inappropriately and secondly, it is virtually impossible for NRSAs to get first domestically because of the long long list of upgrades. Wouldn't the GA also have had to put the NRSA's above the entire upgrade list?