Yeah they just need to scrap & rewrite their entire upgrade process code.

Seems like there has always been issues and then AS has piled on more complexity the last few years. AS has the most complex upgrade rules of any carrier IMO. Premium treated as an "upgrade", sometimes immediately upgradeable dependent on status AND fare class, but no premium for X fares, except for T-2h, and no auto-upgrades on exit rows. Then there's the OW elite benefits and the AA specific benefits. It is just so convoluted.

Then the public upgrade list...sometimes you appear, sometimes you don't; sometimes the processor runs, sometimes it doesn't; sometimes you can check-in again to skip the upgrade list; sometimes upgrade list order inexplicably shifts; sometimes people on the list are repeated multiple times...

I like AS overall, more than AA and other carriers these days, but the upgrade list & process is certainly not its strong suit