AS has no incentive to make Mileage Plan fair for all travelers. In fact, fairness is kinda antithetical to what a FF program is. The point of a FF program is to encourage flyers who have some discretion in who they fly to prefer one airline over another, and to encourage flyers who have discretion in whether they fly to fly incrementally more. They are specifically designed to be "unfair" to customers who have no choice in who they fly (see: exclusive corporate contracts that allow businesses to purchase fares for employees that don't earn mileage) or shop solely on price (see: saver/basic economy fares).

Of course, they don't want to alienate any potential customers, but as you yourself say later:
Alaska is still a regional airline, and the customers they want to butter up are the ones who fly frequently in that region. That's not the same thing as whether those customers live on the west coast, but there is a correlation.