You'd think if UA was making it mandatory to only use results provided they would increase the quality of the results. Now they penalize us for doing their work and finding the most logical routing.
In terms of the new rules for award routing I think
MathewLAX said it best in his blog post:
By limiting the Excursionist Perk to within a single-region, stopovers in Japan on the way to China or Australia or a stop in Europe on the way to Asia or Africa is over. But you can fly from Munich to Istanbul for free on a round-trip award from Chicago to Shanghai. Go figure...