When I was EP, I had plenty of upgrades clear out of DFW. You need to look for flights that are (or are likely to be) J5 or higher at the time the elite upgrade window opens, based on recent RM trends.

Of course, if you're always flying at consultant/business-heavy times (or now just on popular leisure routes at prime times), you may need to adjust which days/times you're flying if you want to improve your upgrade odds.

By the way, ORD and SAN can be tough for upgrades at peak times also, and STL has quite a few A319s with 8J cabins now, so it's not like DFW is always way tougher than everywhere else.