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If your travel is likely to be in J and F , then the BA and QF schemes are ( imo ) the best for reaching required points for tier levels.
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That's as long as you can get available FF seats! QF is virtually impossible to get award seats on and BA is apparently even worse. (Just see my thread about awards in BA forum). What good is a status level if you can't use it? On AA I have never ever had problems getting an award seat even on BA or QF.

I have never had any real problems getting reward seats on Qantas unless I have been rigid in my plans. If you have been able to get them through AA, then you would have been able to get them directly. I managed to get a 1st class flight from Oz to UK at one days notice only a week or so ago. I have had a lot more problems getting flights with AA.

I think that you would be hard pushed to validly dispute that it is easier to maintain status levels with QF than AA. 1 roundtrip UK-OZ in J keeps my Gold status with QF, whereas I would have to travel 40,000 miles with AA to maintain Platinum ( and still not have access to AA lounges when travelling within the USA )

Dave