I agree that there's no point in ordering preference until you know what's actually available.

The only thing I contest here is NW vs MH. NW flies the new A330 from the West Coast and connections in NRT are a breeze. It's debateable but I think the IFS MH vs. NW is about the same but don't we all agree that the new NW J seats are superior? Just my 2 cents (actually I just returned from a roundtrip to NRT in J and it was beyond my expectations.)

Oh and the new NW seats have the really cool AVOD system - big screen and plenty of on-demand programming.