I don't think all the doom and gloom about M+B as a program is quite fair here.

Firstly - I will say that I think it is disgusting that they changed the award prices without notice - that is completely unfair and is far more damaging to the trust that a loyalty program requires to be effective than the increase in prices itself.

That being said, there is no doubt to me that M+B is still an excellent program.

with 4 flights on Aegean (oh no! I am forced to take a weekend away on a greek island!) maintaining Star gold is still a very good deal.

On the redemption side it is still a very competitive program!
Of the changes the most impactful will be the Europe to NA raise... North America one way J 55k miles is not awful! yes yq surcharges on the LH group are high but others can be 100eur or less

in comparison, common Star programs..
United 70k
Aeroplan 55k
neither of which usually pass on the yq
Singapore 65k on partners + yq, 72k on their own planes
Turkish 45k

Oneworld
BA want 63k avios offpeak minimum, 75.5k to the West Coast, including Club Europe leg. And their surcharges are just as high as LH
Iberia 57k avios off peak minimum, way more on their peak calendar, surcharges like if on LOT, UA, TP etc
AA 57.5k and usually low surcharges

Skyteam's programs are chaos but Delta would want 75k and up, Flyingblue would be 60k or so and up, plus 250eur surcharge.

Virgin atlantic for Delta flights 50k and no surchages

The general synopsis is that 55k miles is definitely still competitive from an amount of miles required position, middle to lower of the amounts required.

Other award prices like 65k to Far East, 75k to Australasia, these are all still very reasonable.

The inter-Far East award is a loss for those who like exploiting sweet spots in that sort of way, but for getting flights to places in J/F from Europe, still a very reasonable set of prices on the whole and when you combine that will the easy status, a solid, solid program.