Sadly anxiao, those old school days that you were privileged to be a part of commercial airline history are gone and just like the GST, excise fuel tax and carbon tax (that's another topic altogether) once changes were implemented by the accountants and management, it was for the benefit of one side only.
Our travel system is still not as transparent as other airlines nor 'user-friendly' - on the 'plus side', they now use a microphone and speaker to call out your standby number whereby as you can recall, they shouted out names or spoke soft enough that we'd all huddle up close to confirm the name called out.
Safe travels anxiao.