There are very few commercial aircraft that can make this trip without a refueling stop, and to my knowledge, MH doesn't have any of them. Also, flying an ultralonghaul is inherently difficult to make any profit on due to fuel cost/weight issues. There are some of these routes on other airlines, but they struggle to turn a profit and that's on routes where demand and passenger load is very heavy: i.e., ORD-HKG (UA), EWR-SIN (SQ), LAX-BKK (TG). I'm guessing that long-haul demand from North America to KUL just isn't high enough to justify a nonstop, so makes more sense to break into two segments to drop off/pick up intra-Asia passengers and deal with the fuel.

On the award note, I've only done Skymiles (well, WorldPerks) awards on MH for intra-Asia. Their tax/YQ burden on award tickets (= cash outlay out of pocket ) has always been one of the worst, though in the last year or so, other airlines in ST and other alliances have been catching up. Also a FWIW, my experiences in the last 4-5 years on MH within Asia and KUL-Australia segments has been meh: IMO, it's now a slightly-above-average airline but I think has slipped from previous glory days. I would no longer go out of my way to book an ST award on MH solely on the expectation of stellar air and ground services.