Tuesday/Wednesday has been one long, stressful day. It all started Monday night when I began checking to see if my upgrade would clear. (See this post about upgrading on United)
It all started like this. 2 hours before online check in opened, there were 20 BusinessFirst seats left. At this point, I liked my chances of upgrading. As you can see, I was #11 with about 18 seats left (45min after check in opened).
Things got a little bit better later. I was #7 with 12 seats left (7 hours after check in opened).
That good feeling went away because I was back to #10 with 12 seats left (14 hours after check in opened).
The door essentially closed on any upgrade chances at this point. I was #11 with 10 seats left (17 hours after check in opened). I continued to hold out hope until the last minute.
It was not to be. I ended up being #3 on the waitlist after the cabin was full.
I am good with it, I just wish that I would have paid for the upgrade outright because I have not been able to get any sleep. The bulkhead Economy Plus seat does have a lot of legroom, so I am appreciative of that.

I contacted United on Twitter about the delays in Houston and LA that I experienced, as well as a refund of miles + money for not upgrading. This is the response that I received:
Final Word
To be damned with the upgrades, but why should I request a refund if the system did not process the upgrade. I feel that it should be returned automatically. To get terrible customer service during the entire trip is unacceptable. Being held on the plane in Houston is no good, it got to the point that a couple exited the plane because they were afraid. And for United not to know about a curfew in Singapore, baffles me. Maybe this was just a perfect storm or maybe I am overreacting. Hopefully we will land in Singapore soon without any other issues.