A "seat request" card indicates nothing other than someone has no seat assignment. It does not indicate whether they are a standby passenger or confirmed.

Since when? You can't have a seat request card, if you're not confirmed on the flight. Seat request means you're awaiting an assigned seat, not waiting to get placed on the flight. If they print one at all, it will say STANDBY and not Seat Assignment Requested.

This is true for kiosk boarding passes. Confirmed say "assigned at gate" and standby say "standby" for the seat assignment. Ticket counter boarding passes say "Seat request" for both. A box in the top right will say "confirmed" or "standby"

So I'm neither right nor wrong. Hate when that happens. You'd think DL would stick with one or the other.

Sadly, a ticket agent and a redcoat at the SkyPriority check-in area in ATL were unable to interpret it that way. I had a weather disruption back in January, and ended up purchasing a full fare F ticket for the next day due to DL's unwillingness to rebook me. My boarding pass said both Seat Request and Confirmed in the top right box. The ticket agent said that this meant nothing and if there was a seat available I would get it but chances were minimal. The redcoat argued that I was indeed in the flight, but standing by for F, as the boarding pass said Seat Request.

We ended up being rebooked by DL on a later flight and getting our ticket refunded. The new BPs again said both Seat Request and Confirmed. We got a seat assigned at the gate, but we were never in the standby list.