Honestly, you just need to read the board's of the major airlines and be on the lookout for the best deals to earn miles. For the $3k-$4k annual travel budget you mention you could have recently obtained 500,000 miles on US Airways (see this thread) which would have been enough for 3-4 international round-trips in First Class on some very good airlines (Lufthansa, Swiss, Thai, or Singapore, for example). Unfortunately that offer is gone now, but there will be others in the future, maybe not quite as lucrative, but they will come.

Status is not what you need, what you want is to earn as many miles as you can for as little as possible, then use those miles to get free tickets in premium cabins to head overseas. Wait for good credit card offers from airlines. Be on the look out for partner offers (Delta and US Airways have both run lucrative promotions the past few years to earn bonus miles based on partner transactions, for example). Be aware of the best idine bonuses for any given time.

Of course with this strategy you will not earn a free Business or First Class ticket in every program each year, but you should be able to earn one next year in one program, then another in a different program the following year and so on. It's much easier to pick up say 500 miles a day if you don't focus on a single program, and eventually you can get enough miles to get an award, sure it may take a few years, but that's okay. If you can pick up just 500 miles/day through various promotions, offers, credit cards, and of course the occasional actual travel, that would be 180,000 miles a year, enough for a one or two nice premium cabin international awards a year.

Also, if you're looking for weekend trips out of RDU, you should absolutely consider Southwest. If you just want to hop down to Florida or up to Washington or even to Vegas for a weekend, they offer a perfectly good product if you're on a non-stop flight (free ticket on Southwest after first purchase with their credit card with this offer).