This nonsense has been going on for well over a month. If there were a will to fix it, it would be fixed - or at least an interim solution adopted.

If the complexity of the problem is such that it defeats even the endeavours of QR's 5-star management, maybe they could empower agents to at least make changes to seating at the request of passengers. The low probability of a seat assigned without charge when revenue could have flowed into QR's account would be a risk a customer focussed entity would accept.