Jes
I tend to agree, at "my" airport it's close to fistycuffs at the gate coming up boarding time, and it's funny how many seemingly well educated Brits don't know their alphabet......
I travel both EZE and BA on the same route - I reckon there's sod all difference in the time it takes to board and get sat down because of the scrum around the gate and again on the aircraft with EZE.
Paxboy
IMHO "sit wherever you wish is fine" in an ideal world, if everyone just took a random seat, but they don't. Just about everyone wishes to sit at the front - so you get a massive backlog onto the jetty as people climb over pax in aisle seats to get into, for example 3A or 3F..they won't move a few rows back to the aisle empty seats and that's why on just about every departure you hear the EZE cabin crew pleading with passengers to move down the aircraft because there are plenty of seats at the back.