Status matching is an interesting concept because it defeats the reward for loyalty, it basically says if you were loyal to one airline, our airline will give you the same benefits. However, it is an effective and necessary business practice as it reduces the lock one airline has on a traveler if they want to switch.

I can't imagine there's a big impact to locally earned elites. Either someone matches and doesn't re-qualify, thereby probably only taking a couple flights which doesn't disrupt much, or they qualify, which means they would have qualified a few months down the road.