In Reply to: What's the point of web check in? posted by Holladaze on Thursday, 19. January 2012 at 12:53 Bali Time:
fine print. What happens is you give up your right to change flight times as soon as you do a web checkin. In return you receive no benefit for that loss of flexibility as you still have to checkin anyway.
Once "checked in" AA can then be certain that if you are not on that flight you won't be on any other flight either.