How many confirmations on the input? Many pools still take coin age into account when including transactions in a block, it's not just a straight highest fee formula yet. (Despite any propaganda to the contrary to justify it's future removal).
i seriously doubt that. the priority formula is long dead.
my transaction spent outputs each with less than 10 confirmation. as i said i am withdrawing from an exchange to (possibly) another exchange. and exchanges don't keep money around, it is spent right away.
Or the queue might have been short and there was no real wait for your transaction and it got in early.
the queue is called mempool and it has not been short both times. (currently at 62K)