Since I've been finding myself unable to find saver award tickets to fit my schedule, I've been thinking about the value of standard level awards vs cash tickets.
So, I've put together a little table.
For this table, I've made a few assumptions, that are true in my case, but YMMV.
I run a small business that generates $30K of spending per month, mostly in non-bonus categories. I do very little portal shopping, mostly because I don't shop very much, and none of my specialty vendors would ever be on those portals.
While I do some churning, most of my miles and points come from regular spending.

My stable of cards is your typical FT assortment.

So, here's what the table represents.
The first column is the cost of ticket in dollars or miles (revenue coach was estimated at $1K, revenue business at $4K, redemption fees omitted for simplicity).
I then compared how much spending it would take to redeem the revenue ticket with 2.2% Barclays Arrival, and how much spending it would require with UnitedClub, InkBold, Citi AA, and AmEx SPG to redeem the same ticket at saver and standard levels.

I estimated that I earn approximately 3 miles/$1 with InkBold on the average (2 miles hotels/gas, 5 miles office supplies/telecom, 1 mile everything else)
I also have UnitedClub card that earns 1.5 miles/$1, and I assumed 25% bonus on SPG Transfers.

I then calculated what this spending would yield with a 2% cash back card (e.g. $100,000 in spending on a miles card would yield $2,000 in cash back).
That, to me, is the true cost of the ticket.

So this is what the chart looks like


It looks like with InkBold card, even at standard levels business class tickets are very reasonable. I don't know if 3 miles/$1 ratio can be maintained for larger amounts (I'm estimating it at $10K/mo spending), but if it can, redeeming standard level awards is not so bad.