I doubt ‘sophisticated’ is the right word. When they want, they can be quite sophisticated.

however, in the scheme of things, I highly doubt meal vouchers is a big enough reason to post a slightly shorter vs. longer delay - more like pocket change to UA. There are just too many other important factors. One or two missed connections, particularly if they end up OAL, is going to dwarf the costs of meal vouchers (which, by the way, on delays of just +/- 3 hours are probably not even used by that high a percentage of pax anyway). If that delay being > 3 hours pushes a crew overtime and so they can’t work their final flight of the day, that is a much more compelling factor to get the delay to be shorter. Not a few meal vouchers.