I think many thought the Hand Baggage Only fares were a sort of reduction for not troubling the airline with the hoopla of checked baggage. In fact I believe it was presented like this. There wasn't any indication given that one would thereby be treated as a Bottom Class Citizen.
Meanwhile, for those paying the substantial front end fares, the last thing I would want is to be out of the lounge well in advance, to be first in the aircraft sat doing nothing. I would expect to be one of the last out of the lounge and into my seat. This seems counter-intuitive.
I know the whole approach comes from the USA where many pax have given up on checked baggage (doing so when they perceived the airlines had given up on prompt handling of it, plus high baggage mishandles at transfer hubs, generally through inadequate staffing). So they pile in and fill the lockers up with oversized rollaboards when the aircraft is only half boarded. This leads to all sorts of mob scenes in US aircraft, arguments between pax and such like, and premium pax boarding and finding the bag space has been all taken by those paying a fraction of their fare. But that's an operational thing to manage, and certainly on AA if the flight attendants would ensure the F lockers were for the F pax instead of filling them up with their own crew bags and then standing there chewing gum and staring into space during boarding (or gassing among themselves in the galley) things for all, but especially the premium pax, would be a lot better.