BA Euro Traveller (Economy) to London

From the Alitalia Lounge, I headed for the long trek to the BA Lounge for my 24+ hours with BA.   BA Gold requires 1,500 Tier Points and at least 4 BA segments.  While 1,500 Tier Points are easy for me to accumulate, it's those 4 BA segments that are the challenge.   So I planned this trip to knock off all 4 segments, starting today with Rome-London-Amsterdam.  I chose AMS because it had the cheapest two flight one way Economy fares from Rome as well as some of the cheapest Business Class fare to LAX.  I paid for each ticket using Amex Pay WIth Points and my 35% Platinum card rebate.  Since Club Euro (aka Euro-fraud Business Class) is simply a 31" pitch Economy seat with a blocked middle, I saved money and bought an Economy ticket... and selected exit row aisle seats, with at least a foot more legroom than in Business Class. 

At around T-45, I headed out for the gate... which turned out to be all the way back and just beyond the Alitalia Business Lounge.  LOL. 

Today's flight was one of BA's new 32Qs, which is British for "cram wafer thin seats into an A321".   This Euro-fraud configuration doesn't even have a middle seat drop down tray.

But as bad as Club Euro is, Economy is horrific unlesss you are in the exit row.  Wafer thin seats with no recline at all.

Lots of legroom... but can anyone make a thinner seat?  Yikes.

The exit row legroom makes the 2+ hour flight survivable.