Hi Liteswap
I completely empathise with you, since I travel by air nearly every week and encounter the "sales prevention" processes that you describe in your posting.
The last 10 years have been a period of strong growth for the airlines and the focus has been bums on seats, not service.
The next couple of years are going to see what economists call a "correction" and a lot of industry people are going to be ex industry people.
It remains to be seen what impact this will have on service levels, but it will certainly alter the worldview of a lot of people who have got used to people using high levels of disposable income to purchase air travel.
Watch this space, from about September/October onwards.