I suspect you're right, although I understand that UA's website now shows nearly all *A awards, which is a pleasant advance. But overall the airlines are caught in a delicate balancing act: they need their FF programs to be enticing, but not TOO enticing. They'd be in trouble if lots of people actually started redeeming all those points being so freely given out by the affiliated CC companies (especially with flights already running so full - there's not much "wasted" inventory available to give away these days).