Actually, finding your assigned seat is quick and easy. My theory on why SW is faster is this. When you have an assigned seat and are heading to it, what really happens? You end up standing, waiting someone who is in a row in front of yours, while he takes off his jacket and puts his carry-on baggage in the overhead bin. This happens hundreds of times on each flight, and causes a long line out the door of the airplane if they don’t wait long enough between boarding calls.
On SW, on the other hand, if someone is blocking your aisle, most people will just sit down in a close seat.
I used to dislike the cattle call method of boarding on Southwest. However, once they started giving double frequent flyer credit for flights booked online, I changed my attitude pretty quickly. Mr. Legend flies a lot on business, and he uses Southwest almost exclusively. For every four roundtrips we buy online, we get one frequent flyer ticket free. He’s also flown enough that he got a Companion Pass for me, which means that I can fly free with him for a year. Southwest also doesn’t charge extra for one-way trips. We once planned a trip going from Albuquerque to New York, then going by ground with friends to Boston and flying back through Chicago. Every other airline wanted an exorbitant amount of money because we were booking one-way trips. On Southwest, it didn’t cost any more than it would have as a straight round-trip flight. The only drawback was having to fly into Islip, Long Island and Providence, RI instead of the major airports in the area. It was worth the trouble.
This happens with Southwest, too. Anyone who is “traveling with young children or needs assistance” gets to preboard. I like it, though, because that way I know where the screaming babies will be and I can avoid them if the plane’s not too full.