For starters, I tend to skip over articles written by Sebastian on LL as, let's say, I don't care so much for the style and quality of the contributions. Of course this is entirely a personal preference.
Overall on the IHG Rewards topic, I'm pretty much with
khabah on this and can see the point LL is highlighting. IHG is okay for me these days for certain properties I frequent and like, but they lost my loyalty in general over time with me dropping from 100+ nights a year to 10-20 (Covid times aside) these days.
I have been AMB since 2003 and was RA for ~10-11 years and the program just doesn't work that well for my purposes any longer. Spire as an IHG Rewards top status is totally underwhelming and flaky on guaranteed benefits and not worth any effort on its own.
AMB is okay if I got stays planned where it may get me a decent 1-category upgrade and I do appreciate the 4pm late checkout, but the new rules to have hotels get away with 10k points for not granting certain benefits encourages the wrong behavior in some properties that like to play games.
I'm also ticked off about the crappy way IHG handled AMB certificate extensions so far with the absolutely laughable 2x 3 months extensions being all they have done so far. One family member already lost a certificate after 4 tries to use it failed and mine will be next soon. Appeals fell on deaf ears so IHG will move further to the bottom due to what I consider a sh**ty approach to that topic. Other chains have shown how to go about that, IHG did not care so far.
Lastly, Nicholas, your travel profile is not really comparable to many others who stay with IHG. I can see why it may work much better for you with RA and also (probably more importantly) strong relationships and repeat stays at select properties that treat you very well.
Such treatment and reward of loyalty at the individual hotel level is one of the things that makes me still frequent certain ICs even though there are very good options from other chains around as well. Just that these days I rather pay for certain rooms or benefits I want instead of hoping my IHG loyalty status will make it happen.
YMMV