There are two kinds of miles/points: "status-qualifying" ones and redeemable ones. They are very different. Award travel in general doesn't count for travel (it does for SPG, as mentioned above). You're right that a big part of FT is about credit card churning and other tactics to getting redeemable miles for "free" travel, but a larger part (I think) is about the ins and outs of each airline and hotel program.
Getting status and simply getting "free" travel using miles are very different things, but they are related. There are people who just care about the redeemable miles and not status, but people with status tend to be able to earn redeemable miles/points more quickly. For example, as an AA Platinum member, I get double redeemable miles on all my flights. A trip from NYC-PVG nets me more than 30K miles, more than enough for a domestic round trip. But finding award availability is too much hassle for me nowadays, so I just use my miles to upgrade my personal travel. So I don't bother much with the "free travel" aspect, but many do.
I'd say the majority of people with status gain it though employer-paid work travel, but some people (like me) do it solely on personal travel.