I worked for a Virtuoso tour company for 5 years. Your summary of your Virtuoso travel agent experience is accurate. Virtuoso is a luxury consortium. Its the reason why its affliated with World Elite cards. And not just regular or World cards. You should never expect a bargain with any Virtuoso agency. However as you stated, Virtuoso agents are very good at what they do, and what they know. So if you are looking for a comprehensive luxury custom package, a Virtuoso agent can put it together alot better than you could on your own. Never mind other factors like saving the time of doing it yourself, and having someone who actually knows these destinations instead of people depending on Tripadvisor. Oh and yes, Virtuoso does have some sort of negotiated benefits such as free breakfasts, dinners, transfers, room upgrades, etc at all of the Virtuoso luxury properties.

One correction. I had an issue with my Priority Pass renewal with the Ameriprise WE MC. CS was not the way to do it, they just pass you off to Priority Pass, and then Priority Pass says, we don't handle membership issues with credit card benefit memberships.
THe answer is to call the concierge. They handled it immediately. I'm not a big CC concierge user, but my limited experiences so far have been outstanding.