Interestingly, old US Airways awards (pre-HP merger, like 15 years ago) were Standard and Premium. I remember calling US about an hour after my team earned a Rose Bowl bid, booking what would have been a $1500 plane trip with a Premium award (40,000 miles) because of the blackout dates around the holidays.
It was interesting that they actually called the low price awards Standard and the ones that cost double miles Premium.

When the HP merger came along, Standard awards became known as Mileage Saver awards, falling in line with what others, including United, did all along--Saver and Standard awards. Interestingly, CO's awards 15 years ago were like those of US then--Standard and EasyPass (not the tollbooth tag), only to change to "SaverPass" and "EasyPass", eliminating the word "Standard".

The moral, in my mind: "Standard award" may mean different things to different airlines or even the same airline over different times. The only way to be sure is to check it out beforehand. Complaining that only 50,000-mile coach roundtrip awards are available for the desired trips isn't valid. The stated benefit is that as a cardmember, you can get last-seat availability at the Standard (expensive, but possibly worth it in some cases) level just as Premier/Elite MileagePlus members would. No bait and switch. Just need to understand what Standard means.