To me the bottom line with points.com is this, yeah overall for most situations its a total rip off. But it's very helpful in some instances so its a very situational thing. If you have orphan miles that you will truly never use then getting something for them is better than letting them expire. So that's an excellent use. And also keeping accounts active. I know like a year or so ago I made a small transfer to a usairways account just to keep it active. Yeah there are other ways now like the toolbars that have sprung up, etc but its another option.

I also think that it's not points.com's fault that the values are crap.
I mean that is set by the airlines and such. They charge just stupid fee's just to even transfer miles to someone else to where it makes no sense. Points.com simply has to pass that expense on. So it's honestly pretty pointless to always be ragging on them, to me its the airlines that are to blame if you really want to complain to someone it would be them, but I doubt that would help.

So take points.com for what it is. If its not of use to you, move on. But for a lot of people it does come in handy every so often. Another instance I just thought of is partner activity like with priority club, there have been several times where various promo's required partner activity and points.com was great for that. I think you could transfer like 10aa miles or something for 1 pc point and boom you got credit. Is the 10 to 1 trade a great rate, of course not but it was still a great overall value and deal a super cheap way for a activity. So honestly I think its a good service and I'm glad its available vs having nothing at all. Again is it a great value on just the trade basis, no of course not, but you have to look at the bigger picture of what you get (getting rid of orphan miles, partner activity, etc)