I cant say I am surprised by their reasoning (my sense at the velvet rope was that DL was putting a lot of effort into catering to hub flyers and forgetting that they have a lot of loyal customers elsewhere - particularly those in ATL). Kind of bothers me as I think about it, them monkeying with who gets the upgrades that way, where you live is not part of the hierarchy and shouldnt be. They brought the problem on themselves they are trying to solve, as was said that night, the problem is when people dont clear at their window and have to play gate lottery. Those of us connecting in from other airports check in earlier for our connection and get put back on the list and was dropping hub flyers low on the list (within their elite level). If they would get the upgrade list fixed so you don't have to get back on the list (as they are supposedly working on) this would become a non-issue.