PR would plug a few holes in OW. With MH joining the need for a SE Asia partner is diminished, but there may be room for both. As the article says, they'd be useful for another route to go Asia <-> Australia, but with CX/BA/QF/MH that's pretty well covered in OW. They'd also open up HNL and especially GUM to the rest of Asia - aside from JL via NRT once daily that is poorly timed for connections, there isn't much OW access to GUM.

As for recovering from earlier woes, stranger things have happened - GA has transformed themselves as a pretty respectable airline. Though I don't understand what the fixation is with star rankings. Does the airline industry really see Skytrax rankings as definitive or persuasive?