Not to be too harsh, but maybe the article should be titled "Travelling for the Passive Agressive & Neurotic". How about trying to be tolerant and gracious like you should be in all other aspects of life? Understand that being able to sleep comfortably is probably out of the cards if you're flying, let alone flying coach. If sleeping is the goal, ignore the whole list and replace with #1) Get a prescription for Lunesta. #2) Take Lunesta. Maybe Valium may be more effective for the author. Or do what I do, which is have a couple of scotches and watch a movie.

I think I would sooner strike up a conversation with the person next to me and try and have an enjoyable trip instead of living below the line.  Life is about living above the line, too short to be angry or aggressive all the time.  I fly often for work and that policy has never bothered me

Heh...used many of these tactics on my four-leg plane trips over the last few days. They mostly worked, except on one flight where the guy next to me seemed to know them, too.