In my latest flight back to London from across the pond I was in W (WTP). My footrest was broken, ie it would not lock and would stay up causing both a minor security problem for takeoff and landing (as the floor would not be empty) and considerably less confort throughout the flight as I could not rest my legs on anything.

CSD solved the first problem by moving my partner to a J seat for takeoff and landing thereby separating us - not big deal I know but we like flying so we like being together especially at that time - and the second with a "sorry but I cannot reseat you anywhere else" (I didn't ask to be reseated but simply asked whether the footrest could be locked somehow).

Well, it was true that WTP was full (upgrades from WT?) but certainly there were 2 seats next to one another in J. Is there a policy on these issues? To what extent has a seat have to be faulty/broken before an invitation to an upper class seat is made? A footrest may sound a minor issue but on a WTP it's actually a quite confortable thing to have.