Originally Posted by kingstontoon

Some great responses here, thanks all. I'm not a small person so having an empty seat next to me in long haul Y makes a huge amount of difference, and is why I spend money doing things like mileage runs to maintain status and maximise the chances of that.

On the other hand, someone moving to a blocked aisle in CE wouldn't bother me in the slightest, and we'd probably end up chatting. Likewise on the rare occasion I get an exit row to myself I don't mind someone moving to sit in the aisle, but would be unhappy if the middle was blocked and someone plonked themselves down there.

It's just the fact in the example I gave the guy moved from an aisle to an aisle, but in doing so made his family's experience better, his neutral (or maybe better if he would have been bothered by his kids) and mine significantly worse.