That is up to you, actually. Do you have the creativity and flexibility to make them highly valuable?

I have redeemed ~15 AA domestic trips over the past three years for family, both in domestic F and economy, always getting great value for my AA miles compared to the lowest cash fares on any airline. My next trip is for 5 of us together flying AA domestic Flagship First BOS-LAX and back, booked 10 months ago, a great use of miles (I'm amazed AA let me book half the F cabin with saver priced partner miles in this case). International, I just returned from an AA miles booked Maldives trip with my wife, flying Qatar Q-suites both ways, 140K miles return/person. Booking about 6 months out, this required date flexibility and willingness to position coming back (flew QR to IAD and bought a separate domestic ticket to BOS since I wasn't finding anything desirable to Boston). This summer 3 of us are flying business class Boston-London, 65K AA miles + $5.60 per person outbound. Booked a few months ago, choosing dates based on pricing, booked as connecting for pricing reasons then changed to non-stop when the inevitable schedule changes hit. (Coming back we are flying a Star carrier to get non-stop from where we will be next).

In my case, I actively collect miles in over 10 programs to take advantage of the various sweet spots and have access to the most convenient award seats. Over the past 3 years, usually booking 6-11 months ahead, AA miles have 2/3 of the time been the best value for domestic trips with the closest UA and DL options often costing 2x or 3x what AA was offering. Overall, I find AA/Oneworld miles the most valuable kind of mile for domestic and Caribbean/Central American international trips. I find UA/Star miles to be the most useful overall for longer distance international trips. Delta/Skyteam miles are less frequently the best value but occasionally fit a trip perfectly.

So what are you going to do? You are free to make your AA miles a waste. Or with effort, learning, and creativity you can get great value from them! The choice is yours.