[richright]

I partially disagree Sarah but I understand the problem and have a better proposed solution that would make both of us happy.
Years ago I complained like the dickens over the excess amount of preboards as not only you and your kids would pre-board but also husbands that would sometimes steal my emergency exit row seat. After a lot of complaints they amended their policy that says preboards can't sit in the exit row seat. I believe this policy is somewhat unofficial however as their carriage of terms states specaial needs persons CAN be excluded from the exit row but nothing states this is absolute. Anyway they eventually cut out a lot of the preboarding. However what they did do was essentially replace much of the former preboarding with business select and frequent fliers by automatically giving these customers the first slots in the A-line. These people don't have to check in early just pay about twice as much as most or fly a lot on Southwest. That excludes me and you and most other people.
What they should do is calculate the number of special needs persons in advance and reserve seats for them in the front. Upon boarding you board last to speed up the boarding process but you get pre-assigned seats in the front. For people like me that have a 39" inseam and NEED the emergency exit row seat I get one of those pre-assigned to me also. For this convenience we pay a nominal fee to make it worthwhile for Southwest and keep the other passengers from being envious over our "special treatment". After all most would not want to pay even a few extra dollars for special treatment unless they really needed it.
Case closed and everyone is happy.
What we have now is an elitist system. First come first served unless you pay a lot more or fly on a frequent basis. Then you get special treatment. That doesn't seem fair to me because it is not based on need but rather greed on Southwests part.