This is basically my only complaint w Delta. My wife literally spends hours looking for award tickets at a reasonable cost. Lately we have just been buying upgradeable fares and spending SWUs. That is OK while I am working full times and more miles are earned. I do hope to someday use the many miles I have. Now I have used MANY, but not a lot recently.
We want to make a trip to South Africa or Australia but the BE tickets range from 250000 each and up. At that amount I won't have too many trips for retirement.
I have discussed this directly with high Delta personnel more than once. We shall see what happens.