I received a notice of an equipment change on an upcoming flight, where a 777 plane with 2-4-3 configuration was swapped out for one with a 3-4-3 config.

My wife and I had paid for reserved seats for the 2 (seats A and C) before the change, and now the seat has changed to ABC. One of our seats was refunded and changed to a B seat, with the paid aisle now open.

If I pay for the C Aisle seat again, leaving an empty middle seat open, does anybody have any thoughts on what the chances are that it would remain empty so we could just remain together in peace? I suppose that'd just depend on how full the flight would end up being? The flight is two months out with empty seats remaining, but it's been slowly filling in.

Or would we just be better off switching to D-E seats (center aisle seat and adjacent)?