We've had much different experience: I'm 12-for-23 as a platinum this year on upgrade-eligible flights, including ATL-ORD last Monday morning. The week before, I cleared on both legs of EWR-MCO-EWR (one of which on a 752, which was nice).

I got upgraded on PLS-EWR as a Silver. Was #1 on the list for AUS-EWR. Traveling EWR-AUS on an award ticket Sunday, hoping for an upgrade.

Breakout the TODs! Sunday's SAT-CUN flight is booked 0 out of 20 in F! Hopefully some Silvers will get their first upgrade of the year on this bird (and probably ~18 non-revs).

8/27 as a gold this year

DEN-MCI on a Q400. I don't know if I'll be able to stand the excitement.

I would say that is an excellent route for upgrade chances.

6/20 for 2015 as a gold

Upgraded flights were
Iah Yyc
Yyc den
Den las
Den anc
Anc den
Sfo Yyc

Pretty happy with that result Most cleared at the airport.

I've only been UA Gold for a short period, so my track record isn't very informative. But I will say, I greatly prefer the AA system. I'm the equivalent level on both airlines, and because AA only upgrades when I request it, my hit rate on flights I really care about is quite good (upwards of 75%). Yeah, the upgrades are limited to the number I earn, and I hated that system when I first earned status on AA, but now I understand what's nice about it.

Flew 5 domestic segments so far this year. 2 of the 5 were upgraded to first class as United Gold.

SNA-SFO on a Saturday night
ORD-MCO on a Saturday late morning flight

2/2 as a silver this week
 

My son, a silver when he left Honolulu Monday to return to school in Seattle cleared both the HNL SFO and SFO SEA legs as CPUs, his first CPUs ever.

Now, in all fairness, it looks like every elite on the Seattle flight cleared...there were less than 20 pax on board. That's double luck - they didn't canx and he cleared.

Is United so bad these days that not having your flight cancel is now considered luck?

As for me, in my limited experience as a Silver, I got 1 CPU...which I then lost because of a misconnect (Island Hopper, connecting to GUM-HKG, and GUM-HKG actually cleared that morning for the evening flight, but UA154 was just a tad bit late...35 hours...so I didn't make the connection).

From the remainder of the description, I believe the OP may be under the mistaken (but somewhat common) conception that lightly loaded flights regularly get canceled.

My upgrade successes in 2015:
ATL-ORD
MCO-EWR
EWR-MCO
PIT-EWR
FLL-EWR
EWR-FLL
ATL-EWR
PBI-EWR x3
EWR-PBI x2

Amazingly, I got upgraded on the LAX-EWR redeye, on a Friday night, no less. This is my FIRST upgrade as a Gold since 2012! On an A320 no less, and it cleared at check in 24 hours before the flight.

That is awesome. Congrats! I have a hard time clearing A320's as 1K, especially transcon and redeyes...
and love your handle - you know Moz won't fly US domestic airlines, right? lol