>>>>>But there are fewer previously prime seats forward now being labelled as Coach Choice and thus more available for Elite advance seat selection.

I checked my bookings through April, May, and June and except for where planes were pretty much booking up already so shifting seats to the new schema would be impossible, the Choice seats were moved to one aisle row at the back of P and to the poor-cousin exit row. I think this is an exceedingly fair and well executed shift. The best seats are now back for elite pre-booking, and the Choice seats are now--if they happen to be gone--pretty much a wash. These are seats that would be gone on a slightly more elite-ridden flight without anybody noticing--a statistical increment from previous opportunity, one that a minor variance in number of elites on a flight would make invisible. It's a statistical difference now--one that is worth affording NW in their search for black ink, I feel. This adjustment is vastly superior to the previous situation of having the very best seats banned from advance elite access.