Could a call to the elite desk gotten you an upgrade sooner? (I realize the point is that the EUA process was not doing it's job).

I doubt it. First, the Elite Desk is not empowered to work around IT issues. They can tell you the rules, but not help.

Second, R seat availability was likely not there until just before we checked in. It was A3 for several days out, and then we got it at check-in. Clearly there were more Elites, and of the first 4 who checked in (Seq. 1-4), at least one or two of them would have been Elite, no? But after we checked in (2 of us), it was A1, which leads me to believe the seats were not available at the 24-hour mark, but released sometime after that, but before we checked in.