Shout, sorry to hear that you have bad experience with redemption...in fact, from my experience, i think CX is among the best already in terms of award seats availability (my other experiences are limited to american carriers though)...their award availability is excellent even during peak seasons, except if you try to book last minute, of course...

my best exprience is...last year, i tried to book 7 business class tickets during chinese new year...about 3-4 months in advance...surprisingly, all 7 got confirmed immediately, and it's in a cabin of only 40 business seats...and finally of course the flights were so fully overbooked because of chinese new year...and 3 of us got upgraded to first... i have had much bigger problems trying to get seats with UA and other carriers...they never allocate more than a few seats on each flight and they all got filled months in advance...

as always, with award travel with different programs...if you want to do redemption...you need to book at least a month or two in advance...more if you wanna travel in peak seasons...i don't think CX is bad at all in this area...just my two cents.