Good point redtailshark
"ATL -centric"
I hadn't thought about it that way, redtailshark, but, you're right, that's exactly what it is.
Take this new Diamond level. I live in NYC, travel constantly internationally, but rarely travel domestically. As far as I can tell, the Diamond level will give me nothing more than 25% more miles, which is not that attractive. The domestic lounge access is meaningless to flyers like me, and I'm sure they realize this -- almost no one who travels only domestically, and could benefit from this, could reach the Diamond level. So I will deliberately not credit a couple trips at the end of this year so that I avoid making Diamond and can instead roll over the EQM to next year and easily get Elite+ through 2011 even if I switch to *A.
What I'm interested in -- and I suspect a lot of frequent int'l travelers are with me here -- is three things: upgrades, lounge access, and quality of the in-flight experience. DL gets a big F on two of those three.