I think some of you are missing the big picture in how negotiations work. It is a well known principle that the party that makes the first offer is in the lower leverage position.
In this case the Company came to us, which they almost never do, so that is a big red flag that there is something they want so bad they don't want to wait 2 years to talk about it. That gives us way more leverage then in any sec-6. Think of it this way, say in 2yrs economy still good and there are record profits, the Company could easily say , "we are happy to just extend your contract the way it is. Oh, you want some changes, well what are you going to give us for them?"

The Nov20 letter said, "...we look for improvements without any offsets (concessions)"

Well, "reserve assignment process improvements" fit that bill exactly.

The Company side has to justify the deal to management in real dollars that any change will cost. Things like no FRMS relief cost real dollars. Pay raise is real dollars. But QOL issues for pilots can be had that don't cost any real dollars. The company doesn't care about QOL issues unless they cost money to them. But we have reserve process issues that can be "fixed" that don't cost any real money. So having the leverage in this negotiation is the opportune time to get some of them. Of course the company negotiators are not stupid, even if the thing we are asking for cost them zero dollars they are going to try to make us pay for it in some way. They could say, "well fine we will give you some reserve changes for only a 10% raise".
I think this is where our side missed the boat. They didn't fully use the leverage we have right now. They should have told the company, this stuff is all good but we have to have some changes in the reserve system, and we are very reasonable, we don't want anything that cost the company money.
example-
- limits to SC and FSBs per day, and let's look at the data that shows how many you actually use on average per day
-ability to drop and trade reserve days
( there are more that don't cost any real dollars)

Of course the company side will say, " well what are you going to give us for those things?"
That is where we should say, "nothing, they don't cost you any dollars, so put them in or go back to you boss and tell him you couldn't get a deal because you wouldn't give a few no cost items"

And it is total BS that they say there was no time left to talk about reserve rules. ***? is there a clock running and all talks have to be done before someone turns into a pumpkin?

My guess, our team went in mainly looking for a pay raise because that effects every pilot, the others issues only effect certain groups.
So the other items were put on the table to see what else we could get besides the pay raise. Once they saw the company put a bag of gold on the table they didn't push to hard for the other stuff.