My first sub--Unhappy with "upgrade" happy with "downgrade"

Alright, alright, I know the title is a little confusing but bare with me here. I have never submitted coins before, always bought them raw or slabbed and kept them that way. I recently picked up an 1892 Columbian half slabbed by ANACS AU55PL, and boy did that thing have great mirrors! Sure lock for PL (potentially DPL) and I couldn't believe it was only a 55PL, my thoughts were it looked better than my 62PL Columbian I have so it was bound to upgrade. My thoughts--62PL.
The second coin was an 1898-S $20 DE. I bought this from a friend who had bought it from a dealer in an NGC 61 holder and thought it had PL mirrors, I had only seen photos of it but the time came where he needed cash so I bought it from him. He said he was sending in a submission to NGC and that I could piggyback on it if I needed so I told him sure, with plans to send the Columbian. I didn't even have this coin in hand but trusted what he said and thought it may come back PL, if not oh well, $50 wasted. I was conflicted since I was only going off pictures which can be deceiving. I wasn't too concerned about the grade and thought it would say the same. My thought--MS61.


Now, the results. The Columbian came back UNC details-Cleaned. WHAT!? I was not expecting that at all, I was shocked. ANACS didn't see any cleaning, I didn't see any cleaning, my LCS didn't see any cleaning, and my friend who sent it in didn't see any. Very upset with that, but hey if there is a plus side it did come back UNC, so I was right. An "upgrade" of some sorts but the details and loss of designation is not what I was hoping for.
The DE was a nice "upgrade" as it picked up the PL designation! As far as grade it downgraded to 58, not what I was expecting there but a good tradeoff for the designation. NGC lists the population as 3 in 58PL but doesn't show other grades or at least I can't find where they do. Based of Heritage auctions and the pops they list when other 1898 S come up for auction I would estimate the population in all grades to be about 120.
Now for photos:

 

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I would actually call the 61 going to a 58 to be a grading upgrade as well. With the exception of true rarities in uncirc grades most collectors would rather have a 58 over a 61.

As far as the half, it's possible ANACS net graded the cleaning down to AU. It's also possible that NGC got it wrong. I think what likely happened was ANACS viewed it as a PL where NGC said those surfaces were a result of cleaning.

 

Many (Most?) experienced collectors prefer AU-58 to MS-60, -61 or -62.
Except for a slight rub those AU-58's would generally grade in the MS-63 to -65 range.