I do see a couple of advantages though. One being that you can easily cancel a waitlisted request. Which may have been possible before (maybe?) but in this way would make it quite a bit easier to switch from a waitlisted coupon to an upgrade bid, for instance. And it would generally be a lot easier, less hassle, to get a segment upgraded. One thing I do wonder about is how married segment flights are going to be handled. That required a manual split action in the past. Wonder if that will now be automated.

Another thing that doesn't seem explicitly mentioned, is that all segments on the ticket need to be A3 operated. Possibly you can now upgrade the Aegean sectors on an Aegean ticket even if there is another codeshare on that same booking.

Although of course, it is possible that nothing really has changed...and this is just a way to put in the request that previously was done over the phone. Meaning that the actual upgrade is still done manually. Looking at the rule about not being able to request upgrades 22:00-09:00 the day before departure that does seem to be the case.