While I agree that it would be nice for Amex to waive the foreign transaction fee to match what competitors offer, I also realize that the other benefits (extended warranty, Purchase Protection, Return Protection, etc) are far superior to those offered by Visa/Mastercard in ease of filing a claim and having the claim not be denied.

As such, I look at it as a trade-off, where if you are spending a lot on foreign currency fees and make few purchases that you would need those other benefits than a Visa/Mastercard with no foreign currency fee is preferential. However, if you are looking for these additional benefits, American Express has to be able to cover the costs of these benefits and still make a reasonable Return on Invested Capital (ROIC), which means that they have to receive additional revenue from somewhere to cover their higher costs in comparison to Chase, Bank of America, or any other credit card company that has less robust benefits.

Personally, I would never cancel my Amex because of these benefits, but I also will use a Visa/Mastercard when traveling abroad that has no foreign transaction fees. Sure Amex is leaving money on the table by missing out on these foreign purchases, but probably the revenue they collect by maintaining a FTFs outweighs the additional revenue they would collect from interchange fees if they waived FTFs for select cards.