That's only on flights operated by Continental and the Platinum-specific benefit is only for premium class travel. All elites theoretically get expanded coach class reward travel. Depending on your travel patterns, even with the extra Platinum availability (which isn't necessarily widespread), you'll still probably find more availability on partner airlines (e.g., LH) given the breadth of the Star Alliance. (And of course a lot of things could change when CO and UA merge operations and FFPs.) So I wouldn't say that this particularly benefit is worth a ton.

And just to add how to earn EQMs, you can purchase them on continental.com. The current price is about $0.075 per EQM, so Platinum would cost you $5,625. You'd earn 75k redeemable miles as well. There are some threads on here about purchasing double/triple miles and how to do it without actually flying.