Just to be clear myself, I'm not terribly unhappy with the changes since I'm one of those people who do highly value the spouse benefit. Also, my "retirement" benefit, now pretty much guaranteed to be Platinum with 2 annual RPUs, isn't all that much different from the Premier Executive plus 2 annual CR1s that I was originally promised.
What bothers me more is what I perceive to be a continuing pattern of poorly thought out cutbacks that make me (and many others) less happy with our current traveling experience without really making others happier or adding to the airline's bottom line. Eliminating the few annual upgrades for MMs like me and only giving them to higher-level MMs when they wouldn't already qualify is just another example of their illogical thinking, right up there with the nonsensical new Elite Access system that tries to make everyone special.
If you told me that most of the new executives started out with Peoples Express, I'd believe it!