Fact is most economy section seats now only recline a total of maybe three (3) inches... nothing at all compared to the 7 inches on the first "airliner" I had the privilege of flying... a Convair 580... The previously used Douglas DC-3 recline maybe 5 inches but the upholstery was much softer back then so it seemed like the seats reclined further.
Anyway... 3 inches isn't much anyway and this has nothing to do with seat "pitch" which is the distance from any given point on a seat to the same given point on the one in front of you. This is a fixed distance and is only differnet by maybe 2 04 3 inches from airline to airline. So, this and other such "incidents" is much to do about nothing.
Many of the ultra-low cost airlines are even going to non-recline seats here in the U.S. Spirit Airlines comes to mind... most of their Airbus A319's don'thave reclining seats.
One helpful bit of knowledge... if you're sitting in an aisle seat and the aisle side arm rest wiggles, even minutely, that means that the arm rest can be raised when you're entering or exiting the seat. To do so, feel along the underside of the arm rest all the way back to where it hinges to the seat back... a small button like fixture there needs to be depressed and voila more room to enter/exit the seat...