I do understand airline economics, I used to be the managing director of one so I guess I probably should. The point in this case is that the flight I am on is the lost popular and is selling at a higher yield as it is the last flight of the day and the one I want to switch to is selling at a lower yield... it is in AC's INTEREST to let me switch!
Anyway I have e mailed and asked if I could go on the top of the wait list for the earlier flight in case of no shows, no reply of course, there probably isn't a system for that either.