Sounds like with the new Milestone rewards, Explorists will no longer automatically receive the club upgrade awards but rather have to earn them through stays... so there's very little benefit left from the MLife match (other than guaranteed late checkout I suppose).
Seems that way. The T&Cs currently omit Mlife relationship (Appendix D).
https://help.hyatt.com/en/hyatt-term...t-terms-2.html