I fully concur with XBear about this. Mileage runs were a subsection of a subsection of the community, and have no bearing on anything.

Things have become more difficult/expensive/restrictive/whatever, because;

1) There is little competition left.
2) The amount of mile "currency" created to satisfy the credit card and other premium market.
3) The fact that the airline industry for the most part has now seen an unprecedented decade of straight growth, and with it capacity realignment.


As for blogs posting garbage, so much the better, one frustration that many old timers have had for quite awhile is when things get blown up too quickly and news about certain things gets out too fast.