Welcome to FT and the EK forum.
I sympathise and hope the last leg of your trip home has been OK (too much to hope for an ironic op-up?).
I recognise much of what you say but feel it applies to pretty much all programs and airlines now. Yield management has become much more subtle and effective and in general records systems more accurate (for several yeares I flew with one * Alliance carrier upgrding with miles and then receiving miles credited for the upgraded cabin flown). All the groups here on FT are full of complaints about reward availability and deteriorating earn / burn ratios.
I am less bothered now about earning miles but choose my carrier based on schedule, price and in-flight experience. At the moment EK does pretty well on thiose parameters but not as well as it did.
Good luck with BA. My recent experience is that the crews can be really great or really quite poor, schedules are good from London but planes and lounges get less good and dirtier with every month.