Do a search for each kind of information (star alliance availability, seat map, etc.) you want on FT. After a few weeks of reading, you should have access to most of them. You can even use the KVS Tool feature screenshots as a start.

The value of KVS Tool is that you have all the information available in one place, in one familiar format. While the interface is sometimes hard to use, it still beats having to scout the web, and then interpret, the information separately.

Sometimes we are caught up in a few dollars and forgot that most of our trips in planning are hundreds to thousands of dollars each.

As a very rough observation, if you plan more than 5 trips in a year, KVS Tool is easily worth multiple of the small fee. On the other hand, if you don't plan more than 5 trips a year, then you don't need to spend time on specialized tools such as KVS Tool.

As gleff said, get a 2 months subscription and try it out. If it turns out to be not useful to your usual way of planning, then you are only out a few dollars.