The reason I was advised of this is because I just turned in 280,000 miles for a first class award that allowed up to 35,000 miles of flying.

My itinerary involved 22 segments. Apparently AA has to have a special agent handwrite these tickets because their system cannot print more than 20 coupons and cannot e-ticket more than 16 coupons.

You could easily claim one of these awards and exceed 16 segments as they are indeed unlimited with respect to stopovers as long as you don't stopover in the same city more than once.

Example:

JFK-DCA AA
DCA-RDU AA
RDU-MIA AA
MIA-MSY AA
MSY-DFW AA
DFW-YVR AA
YVR-HKG CX
HKG-SIN CX
SIN-SYD BA
SYD-CBR QF
CBR-ADL QF
ADL-PER QF
PER-MEL QF
MEL-AKL QF
AKL-SCL LA
SCL-EZE LA
EZE-JFK AA

The above itinerary includes 19 segments. This is 33,294 miles and would "cost" 280,000 miles for first class.

Effective 1-1-05 this currently valid itinerary will not be allowed.

So you could do something like this....
and this is just an example with 16 segments--
JFKDCA AA
DCARDU AA
RDUMIA AA
MIAMSY AA
MSYDFW AA
DFWYVR AA
YVRHKG AA
HKGSIN CX
SINSYD BA
SYDCBR QF
CBRADL QF
ADLMEL QF
MELAKL QF
AKLSCL LA
SCLEZE LA
EZEJFK AA
This is 16 segments and would be okay for an e-ticket and still cost the SAME amount of miles for first class (280,000) but you would (effective 1-1-05) eliminate the trip out to PER and western Australia.

One would now have to buy a round-trip where a city previously would have been free.

I know there are cheap tickets in the above example, but not all cities have some inexpensive service.

I just see this as an example of AA accomodating themselves before their customers.