I thought the initial posts from OMAAT and VFTW were distinctly different. Lucky, the kid, pounded on AA almost immediately. Gary, who views himself as a go-to guy for FF programs (hey, I'm on WTOP, I'm in USA Today, I'm on ABC) missed the boat in his first post--AA changes awards you probably don't use, he trumpeted. Since then, he's been in catchup mode.
I try not to be an alarmist but hardly any blogger seems to view these changes as the harbinger of worse to come. While AA's 40K offseason economy awards to Europe have been reasonably available (and will likely disappear under the PAArker regime), US's Envoy options for 60K offseason have been mostly vaporware. And, while AA's biz to Europe during the summer has some AAnytime availability at 100K, US's has generally been at outrageous levels for years--265K ORF-GLA RT for most dates this summer has also been the norm the last few years I've checked.
While I think AA attempted to get out in front of these changes by making Suzanne Rubin available for interviews with select outlets, including OMAAT and VFTW, I don't think we've seen the end of this. I'm not about to dump my AA miles because I just don't panic about stuff like this, but I don't think the big changes are over.