Last night AA 1609 JFK-BOS, wife and I were # 1 and 4 on a list of maybe eight, with five open seats. Nothing happened at T-40, so I approached the gate agent, asked if they wouldn't mind keeping us together when they process the upgrade list (since the 5 open seats were scattered). At around T-36 as I asked that, the top 2 on the list seemingly cleared automatically (including me) but the agent manually processed the next 3, moving me to be next to my wife as she did so (well, across the aisle -- it was 1-1 seating on the 321T).