That's why I come here, you are right. Agent was trying Omaha-DFW-LAX then pick up Cathay Pacific; return on the SYD-DFW then DFW-OMA but I think this would push me well over 20,000 miles. and make your suggestion of a normal saver award plus 10k for SYD-AWK the best choice.
I have around 600k AA miles, I'm so tempted to go ahead and try to go from SYD on to Perth then to London, do my 4 European stops and fly home from Paris. I assume this would jump me to 35-50k catagory and run 220k miles plus from a weather stand point delay the trip to April/May 2013. I also have around 950k Hilton points so I could do 3 145k AXON's (London/Paris/Sydney) and 4 119k AXONS (Prague/Budapest/New Zealand/Istanbul); spend 28 nights in 7 great cities basically for free. Sometimes it seems almost worth it to spend 100/n yr in hotels. This thread is great probably spent 4 hours learning stuff.