I do enjoy the exit row, but lately the middle has always been non elite and almost always full. I could also say similar things about the outboard rows of the domestic 777 flights I have been on. When I check in the seat is always blocked, but never the less the seat is filled upon boarding. It was happening so consistently that i started to walk around the cabin to look at the passenger loads. More often than not not, there are plenty of seats, even aisle in E-. The only thing that has been working better is to take the window seat, hoping the seat block works. This seems to be working better because there are more aisle seat than windows, ymmv. I will be curious to see if the tighter control of the E+ product helps with the last minute gate and check-in seat change requests.