I agree, it will only get worse. So, this past year I decided the 1K status was not worth it, especially since I self-funded about $8k of my 1K PQD the previous year. After all, I planned my personal trips for the year once I got my GPU's in the account in January 2017 because I wanted to grab every upgrade opportunity early. Needless to say, it was not easy but last year I accomplished getting Beijing and Sydney with the upgrades for travel in April and December. I flew other trips in coach, never got upgraded with CPU. But for the GPU's I had to tailor all my travel dates to when upgrades were available. So it was a Tuesday here, a Thursday there. Never ideal but just what was available. I had over $7000K PQD in all for my travel on UA.
So this year, without 1K and without the GPU's and with some clever ticketing, I have my first class to Hawaii, business class to Morocco and business to UK all for under $6k and on the dates I want, not just what are available using GPU's. I feel I've come out ahead and don't have to worry about waitlists, etc. For example, this past year's WAS-SYD-WAS was via SFO each way - I got the long haul upgrades confirmed at booking in January for December travel, but the IAD-SFO-IAD upgrade waitlists never cleared . I should have just sucked it up, purchased those segments separately with the economy-up upgrades they sell. Lesson learned for the future - but then, I will just purchase the business class upfront.