My experience echoes yours. I've been at the top level of American Airlines for many years. Let's just say that the level of expertise / help from phone agents has been better in the past than it is today.

IME the phone agents can only find (or perhaps are only willing to look for) the one obvious non-stop flight. Creative routings are still available, same as always, except you have to hunt them down on your own. Once you hunt down a valid routing and phone in, the agents are happy to book it for you.

You can register for the Qantas frequent flyer program and then get access to their tool to search for award inventory. Another decent option is ExpertFlyer.com (which carries a subscription fee). I'm very happy to pay EF's price, as I get information which, although available for free during the past 15 years (from AAgents) no longer seems available today.