Agree with your sentiment overall
We now live in an age where being armed with entitlements on carriers/classes of travel is unfortunately necessary as part of planning
Polite assertiveness where necessary is de rigueur
Airlines are using the "COVID" phenomena to cut cost and instead of being honest about it are disguising it using all manner of costume
AA has resumed hot towel service for domestic F, SQ Suites has not (!!)
Qantas serves its J meal product with a few tiny exceptions on the LAX-SYD F A380 service - no explanation
The SQ J seat issue is longstanding and reflects the airlines rigid view that the sum of the parts is greater than the whole (which as your review proves is not always true)
The older I get I place more emphasis on sleeping position comfort
The only way to guarantee this on SQ is PPS level for the tiny number of seats with proper footwells - this sucks
On flights where early on it becomes clear that there is a service team that is not cohesive (a minority in the past, more frequent now), I routinely ask to speak to the CSM or equivalent early on, kindly list my concerns and things usually get better from then on
Of course history teaches us that this may not go down well with US carriers - in these situations I try to channel the Dalai Lama ( always fails) and then a double G&T (pretending its Hippocampus gin with 100mls of Fever Tree) and using denial when the dreaded Bombay Sapphire blue arrives in my peripheral vision
Hope your return flight is better