It's not always more expensive to just click upgrade. Sometimes it's less expensive and many here have gotten a great deal waiting for those upgrade prices to be much cheaper than the fare difference. And in that process, some, even the peasants, have also benefited from that cheaper price to upgrade, even if they didn't know about the other option.

By the way, there are other consequences of these choices than just the price. And the only way you would know that is if you spent hours reading through fine print and linking to other terms throughout the Delta website. If someone wants to benefit from the time people have put in to understand all the intricacies, they need to pay someone like a travel agent to assist them. Or ask the collective wisdom of FT for even better information. This is no different than any other purchase.