Yep the only reason I was able to churn the chase swa card repeatedly and harvest the points was to open-->close-->wait--> repeat cycle (or lather rinse and repeat if you prefer).

Agree with others you are losing out on the benefit of churn. As it relates to bargaining: transfer the CL to another card of chase (preferably with no AF), before closing it. Then, when you open a new account with chase, if needed, you can re-capture some of that CL.

Also as it relates to ROI wrt AF, you should think of it per card. Then decide if the AF is worth it. For instance the bag fee waiver is useful only if you actually plan to utilize it. No point in keeping it around, just in case you need.