They know a LOT of information on the pax and ticket.
The order in which they take the wishes for the meal is less important than the pax status. If a DM is asked last, he will still have his choice. That's how it works on CX and many airlines.
Veing so upset that you were the first one to be asked and not getting your main choice happens sometimes as the menu offer a wide choice and they cannot load 6 items of every choice offered.

Yes. That's why they won't let you see what's on ther iPad.
They also knew what your case histories, or history of complaints.

That’s from your FQTS, and probably lets them lookup your CIV too.

Doesn’t prove they also have your ticketed fare class (although I guess they might have it too)

Back in the good old days that's exactly what they did.

Cathay Green Silver Gold and Diamond
 

Cathay has Green, Silver, gold and diamond status within their system. This is the old "Marco Polo" club. They assign "Asia miles" and Cathay status points depending on your booking code. Recently, they simply multiply the Cathay points by 100 for miles. 140 points, is 14,000 miles. The miles are used as usual for redemptions and upgrades. The points are accumulated for status. Asia miles are transferrable or can be used with other Oneworld carriers. Cathay Silver is fairly easy to get if you book Premium Econ or better on a long haul transcontinental or medium haul regional Asian flight. That gets your priority luggage handling, lounge access regardless of class and some "extra legroom" free seats in Economy. They do have priority seats, and customers often choose them. Used to be you could get bumped to an upgrade, but they are certainly showing empty business and premium economy sections in their jets. The days of hoping for an upgrade are rare. There are issues with new employees fearing for their jobs given the recent firings and conflicts with mainland Chinese passengers. They are afraid to make decisions on the spot, so you get the problems we are reading about. I generally ask for the head FA - she's in a black outfit. No reason to complain. The experienced crew remaining are biding time, and may help you if you are humane rather than demanding. Cathay management was, and is still arrogant. They treated their employees, FA's and pilots like serfs. As a result, pilots retired or joined other airlines, FA's did the same, or they found other careers. These aren't high paying jobs. Self respect and respect from others is a currency we seem to forget

You were not impressed based on not getting your size of pajamas? In which the crew apologized for and tried to remedy and had no control over the outcome when you landed in HKG.

OK, Karen. You must be fun at parties.

They gave me monogrammed PJ’a on my 1000th flight
 

I don't think this statement is particularly fair. The ISM told the passenger that a pair would be waiting for them at The Pier and would, presumably, follow up by sending a message to someone at The Pier to execute. This remediation outcome shouldn't have been promised if the ISM knew it couldn't be delivered. When a promise is made, the ISM should take responsibility to ensure it's delivered end-to-end.

Unfortunately, that is not true.
I used to travel a lot in F in the decade pre-covid, often with wifey (both OWE).
There were rare times when one of us could not get a desired dish.

The "good old days" that I was referring to were earlier than that - around 1995-2005. I did close to 100 CX F sectors in that period. I never failed to get my choice of food. Everything started going downhill after that.

DM never fail to get their food. Given the amount of F travel you did, you must have been DM then.
But I agree that CX became more cost conscious in the past 20 years. Rather than having the crew eat all the goodies leftover, they board less of the F/J food.

You can try asking how many club points can you earn for this flight. (I think you know what I mean by this.)
Some newer staff will answer you after looking at the iPad.

Hard for me - my only 2024 CX cash flight is on 1 Apr. In Y.

Does CX still allocate CX own and ex Cathay Dragon crews to different flights? I have just been on a flight from Nagoya to Hong Kong. Aircraft is ex KA A330, and crews are mostly (if not all) ex KA. Service level is just top notch, and so different compared to my recent long haul flights with CX. They are much better trained. Even though it is a turnaround in NGO and they must be tired, they are still very energetic and caring on their passengers. Four cabin crews came to greet oneworld sapphire and emerald members. Then Japanese manager further came to greet and inform flight details. It is just JAL level of service on a CX flight. Missing KA …

No, any ex ka crew are only BCs at this time (junior crew) Cx have never separated crews based on their previous employment.