It's a way to attract travellers who prefer a more private space but are never going to pony up huge amounts of $$ for an F fare. I think that could be a model worth exploring. You'd essentially see planes operating with Y, Y+ (Premium Economy), J and J+ (a few well-planned business seats).
The fares are set by the airlines. It's not like the passengers can dictate how much a fare should be priced on the spot. The model you mention already exists, J+ is F. F get J catering with a slightly more personalised touch and more space/amenities. So not sure why would an airline sacrifice revenue loss by switching to a J+ model in the hope to fill up more seats (remember it's less about seat occupancy and more about yields).
In the case of EK and EY at least, they're already nose heavy, it's quite unlikely that either of these two will ever drop F. I don't think it's about regional customs of wealth exhibition either. EK go several hops along the way to CMB/SIN BKK/HKG MEL/SYD/BNE AKL/CHC with F, rarely if ever empty. Not to mention their J cabin is overcrowded most often than not (both in terms of occupancy and seat density) allowing them to oversell into F or even operate a 3-class as 2-class without sacrificing the bottom line.
The original Bloomberg article is a storm in a cup. It could have been published post 911 and still made sense to some then. The debate about F is not new. It's been there since the 1970s (or perhaps even before). That's when F was simply Y with few more perks. Oh wait, that still happens to this day in many parts of the world!