ive avoided upright rows like the plague for yrs, with my dodgy joints,,,
but recently ive been fucking around with cable variations to hit my traps in different ways... the best 2 ive found so far are
attach 2 handles to the lower cable on a crossover stack, grip the handles with your palms facing out over, and pull up,ive been pulling much higher than i would with bar too,, its almost pure trap, with a great squeeze at top
attach rope( that youd use for rope pushdowns ) to high pully on crossover, lean back slightly, get good stretch with hands together at start, then pull back in arc, squeezing traps together, no shoulder pain at all