"under the clocks, now that the children have had their fun ....the system only allows a one digit numeral (0 to 9) to indicate availability under each fare type available for sale on that flight."

Not true, QF WP - that is how the airlines have chosen to display the flight availability when it is accessible to those outside the airline.

For those within the carrier - using exactly the same software - it can often display the true availability - e.g. a command line entry of (for example):

AQF1/21DECSYDLHR might return something like:

F7 A2 Z0 J23 D17 U0 Y163 (and so on).

So it is not because the system only handles a single digit, it is because (as you later alluded to) the commercial sensitivities of the carriers.

Dave