While I think we all took advantage of the fact rewards points use to count for status I think the change has been a good decision as there were too many top level elites for the amount of money being spent. The only disappointing thing is no additional benefit has been added with the reduction in plat or gold members.
Our very regular posters like Goldorak I guess is already halfway to qualifying seeing as last year I think he qualified x2 over.
I have one 2 night stay in Hong Kong this month which is never that cheap so likely I will be hitting 4000-4400 status points by the end of this month. So looks like I am on track to qualifying.. While I might have other minor stays in April/ May. My next big stay will be at the New York Sofitel which should add like 3000+ status points.