"Are all EXP created equal?"

Of course not. There's me, and then there's everyone else.
I've been trumped by other EXPs who got their request in earlier, or whatever, but never (AFAIK) because anyone was "more EXP" than I was.

I can imagine it happening in one situation, though. That's when the EXP desk asks Yield Management to release another seat in some fare class. Whether or not to do this is a judgment call. In a borderline case they might do it if they knew that the requester was a really high-revenue traveler, but not otherwise. If they didn't release it then, it might become available later, at which point it could go automatically to someone else who flies less (though still EXP) but got in line first. Unless you found out directly from one of the parties involved, though, you'd probably never know.