Double Booking and Re-ticketing

So I got through security and was sitting down at an empty gate this morning about four hours before my flight. I don't often get to the airport so early, but United could never quite make me feel comfortable that my trip to Germany would go off without a hitch, and I decided to take the bull by the horns , get to the airport early, and quell any problems that might be lingering.
The first problem was that my travel agent provided me a couple of months ago with an itinerary that was missing a leg of my return trip. If gone unfixed, I would have spent an indefinite amount of time in Vienna until I figured how I was going to get back to Chicago -- not exactly an unappealing idea, but something that would quickly get very expensive. Two weeks later, upon trying to upgrade me to business class, my dad discovered I was then booked on two flights simultaneously out of Chicago. (So this time I had a healthy round trip, but a dangling dead third arm if you will.) My dad assured them I would not be enticed by the trip to sunny Roanoke, and we cleared the second hurdle. They also him informed him, however, that none of the upgrades could be confirmed until I was "re-ticketed" and that I was booked on the right flights, but under the wrong flight numbers-- all things that would leave someone outside the airline industry with a furrowed brow. And naturally none of these problems could be fixed over the phone. Essentially what they were telling me was I couldn't be assured I was going to Germany today until I had the boarding pass in hand and was sitting at the gate. They might have well have said, "All I can say , Mr. Scharfer, is you are going to have one hell of an exciting day on the 10th cause God only knows!!! You like exciting things, right?!?"
So I'm sitting here at the airport with another 2.5 hrs to kill. Ironically, I didn't have any problems checking in and getting my boarding pass. Nothing like "re-ticketing" or "double-booked" was ever mentioned. I didn't have to wait at the United counter, and I didn't have to wait for one person at security. : )