This. The surcharges on BA awards only make that a viable option IMO if you're unable to find a good deal on a paid ticket, which if booking far in advance is often the case. Some data points:

For my Oktoberfest trip this year where we were to spend 5 days in MUC then 3 in AMS I was able to find an award J ticket SEA-LHR back in Feb that worked for my dates, only one way as the return dates didn't have award availability so was watching for something to open to get me home from AMS. This award was ~$600 in taxes/fees plus the 57.5K miles and on top of that I'd have to get from LHR-MUC as there wasn't award seats on that leg. I ended up finding an AAVacations ticket round trip on BA SEA-LHR-AMS-LHR-SEA for $2200. If I had found award space for the return I'd have been out ~$1200 plus 115K miles, it was an easy call to cancel that award.
While an outlier and I think possibly a mistake on BAs part, I just this week booked a First ticket on BA JFK-LHR round trip for $2000, of which only $500 was "fare" the remaining $1500 was taxes/fees. That same award would have cost 170K miles plus $1300+ in taxes as an award. No thanks.

So in my view BA awards are only a good value if you're grabbing them last minute where discounted J tickets aren't available and their revenue tickets are crazy expensive (which BA does quite well) given discounted J tickets are often available for not too much more than the taxes/fees that you pay on top of the miles plus you earn EQM/D and RDMs. The challenge being that BA doesn't often open award space last minute, so the situations where awards on BA make the most sense/value are when you're very unlikely to find any space.