I was on an evening transcon domestic flight with a connection at IAD with an upgrade into F. The flight to IAD was delayed due to "Crew" and I was obviously not going to make my connection. I managed to be shifted over to DL where, like you on AA, have no status but did have plenty of FF miles to upgrade.

DL refused to upgrade me despite the fact that F from ATL-SEA was >50% empty because of "rules." It wasn't due to lack of effort on my part, either... similar to your story.