I find it hard to believe that a CS agent knows all of these details, let alone shares them with a random caller. I find that most CS agents I talk to these days know less than what's on their company's website.

That said, MGM has clearly been trying to refocus the elite levels on gaming theoretical. They cut hotel and F&B tier credit earnings from 25x to 3x per dollar, and have even made it might harder to earn tier credits and comps from gaming itself! I ran my numbers at the end of 2022 and found that I earned ~25% of the tier credits in 2022 that I earned in 2021, despite having an almost identical coin-in, and my comps are going down even though I had the same theoretical on fewer nights in 2022 vs 2021.

So if they're cutting off people who actually spend a lot of money gaming and on rooms/F&B, I'm not surprised they would cut off the status reciprocity. Gold status before came with basically no hard benefits, now that it includes free resort fees, it actually has some real value (though folks on comps didn't have to pay resort fees in the past anyway).

You can do so, but the options are pretty limited if you want to be on the Strip. You have Cosmo which also includes a $45 resort fee and always seems to be one of the most expensive places on the Strip whenever I've looked at rates. Or the Waldorf or Resorts World for Hilton, where you're also still going to pay the resort fee, though you'll get gold/diamond daily credit which basically offsets it. Resorts World at the end of the strip and too far from everything for my taste. I like the Waldorf's location and the property itself, but since I get comps elsewhere, it doesn't make sense.