To add an Australian perspective, the economy class OWE's are definitely good value in this part of the world. This is especially true if you're looking to include South American travel, which is generally a hideously expensive part of the world to get to from here. Certainly if you just wanted a simple trip there's a Lufthansa ticket available in Australia for under AU$1600 (US$1100) that gets you from Sydney to a number of places in Asia, then to Europe via Frankfurt, then onto US or Canada and then back to Australia. But if you're looking to go off the high traffic routes, then that's when the OWE comes into its own.

For my LONE5 trip it was approximately 50,000 miles, and a cost of US5c per mile. That was going places I actually wanted to go as well, not just to clock up the miles. Including destinations that only have monopoly services, such as Easter Island and Ayers Rock, it saves you a lot over single ticket prices. So from this part of the world anyway it definitely presents significant savings, from other parts of the world (such as the US) where the LONE's are higher priced and regular return airfares are lower then that value proposition wanes.