AA should allow you to do it elite or not. It does take a while to process though, so unless the flight was just about to take off, or you refused to pay the fee, you should have been sitting in F. I'd take the issue up with AA. BTW, enough time can be upwards of a half hour, sometimes it takes forever to process stuff like that.

Has anyone ever confirmed an upgrade with miles in advance, then tried to change their upgrade to an electronic sticker upgrade inside the elite window?

d