As some who earns AS status by flying partners mostly(due to location) if they were to introduce spend requirements on Alaska for elite status it would pretty much kill the program for me. From what I could make of the madness in the thread you wouldn't earn MQD's for tickets not on DL's ticket stock. I wouldn't mind them adding segment requirements though.

The 25k spend requirement for AMEX is a joke though. Pretty much shows that airlines are just banks and spend through credit cards is more important than flying with the airline. Thank god the Bank of America/Alaska relationship isn't as deep as the Delta/Amex or UA/Chase ones.