Well, the US agent was certainly wrong wrt only full fare tickets being available over the next year - a random date shows:
Departs
Pittsburgh (PIT)
September 22
8:35 pm Arrives
Watertown (ART)
September 22
10:00 pm Notes
Cabin class: Y9 B9 N9 M9 H9 Q9 V9 L9 W8 S8 K6 T6
So I wouldn't doubt that the rest of his musings were speculation as well. FWIW, the TSA screening at LEB was nothing like what was described here, at least the 2 times I went through. Just the standard boring "have a nice flight" stuff.