No question - there are a lot of ways the present system could be improved.

A simple one would not to be so stingy with the baggage tracing and contents forms. I'd be willing to travel with one already filled out: that would save time and improve accuracy, since it would be filled out when the bag was right in front of me.

Another one would be to get the bags into the tracing system as soon as they realize they are going to be reported missing at the destination. Why wait for the pax to initiate the complaint before starting the trace? Then when the pax shows up, the agent can say, "Your bags are en route on flight XXX, and they will be here at or about Y O'Clock".

Those two things seem to me like they would save a great deal of time by themselves, and there wouldn't need to be an elite line.

I can also understand the reluctance of United to set up an elite line. The message it sends is "We lose so many bags, we need a line just for elites"