This change is a disaster, period. I thought the partner award chart would be the saving grace here but unfortunately this change entirely breaks the ability to book mixed itineraries. For instance, NH has availability LAX-HND-CTS for 35k, but because SFO-LAX is priced at 17k on its own instead of the lowest level, the .bomb can't even assemble the itinerary under a single booking.
The effective price increase we are already seeing is, in my experience, a 2-3x hit and a commensurate devaluation.