I am delighted to see that this thread which I started more than two years ago is still helping somebody. Must be a reward from God or something.

You can always pay for business class and you will have a boarding number from 1-15 and will be among the first to board that flight. It should be easy to find 2 seats together if you do this, unless it was a full flight from somewhere else and almost no one got off. I live in Texas and frequently fly SWA and I've never seen that happen.