Spoken like people whose employers pay for their travel. However, there are many platinum members who pay for their own travel, particularly small business owners. The downturn in the economy affects us very differently than someone who simply submits a travel voucher to accounting.
If due to the recession we have to curtail our travels, that doesn't mean that we are any less loyal to Starwood. The obvious solution would be to do what Starwood did around 2002. They temporarily lowered the threshhold requirements to achieve status. As such, loyal members whose travel was reduced, but still made a substantial amount of stays with Starwood would still requalify for status.