Having flown 14 different airlines in the past year, I've had my priority-tagged bags come off first, middle, and last--in Europe, US, and Asia. I tried to draw correlations between airlines and even airports, but saw little consistency. It has led me to the conclusion that it depends on the luck of the draw with individual baggage handlers.

As a generalization, Asian airport handlers seem to pay more consistent attention to baggage priority, whereas Europeans the least.

Nothing beats "lost/misrouted bags" for sheer frustration. I've noticed that more often than not, my bags tagged with an international "First Class" label (for those airlines that offer them) appear to be an open invitation for mishandling. I've had this happen a dozen times over the years--and the points of origination run the gamut: Singapore, Hong Kong, SFO, Chicago, Denver, Heathrow, Paris (2x), Barcelona (3x), and Amsterdam. Offending airlines included: United (2x), AirFrance (3x), KLM, Lufthansa, British, Cathay, Singapore, and Iberia (2x). Strangely, I've not had a lost-baggage experience in two dozen trips to/from/within China--despite the generally backward state of infrastructure and procedures (knock on wood).

By far my worst post-lost-luggage experiences were with KLM and Air France in Charles DeGaulle; although the experiences in Schiphol was a close second. In one instance, it took the lost-baggage clerks at CDG 3+ hours to process the lost-luggage submissions from my flight alone--averaging an excruciating 15-20 minutes per passenger.