I'm impressed that you drove to the Cinema Hotel. Last time I tried finding it I went on a merry olde tour of TA and was almost to the point of asking a taxi to let me follow him when I made a turn I swear I'd made before, and there it was.
We'll be doing YYZ-MXP-LCA-TLV in March (but probably riding CY from LCA rather than LY) so I found your story very interesting. EF says our YYZ-MXP plane is a 764, so maybe that means we'll get the new seats.
Of course that presumes that AZ is still in the airline business by March.