This isn't entirely true; there is no rule that requires you to take all of the flights on your itin. You can book a OWE that starts and ends in Europe, and just not use the last leg. I am currently in the middle of an RTW ex-Australia, but have yet to decide whether I'm going to take the last few legs (LAX-AKL-MEL-PER) - I'm home in SoCal now. Paying for a one-way to Sydney and then buying my LONE4 in Oz saved me roughly $1500 over the price of the LONE4 ex-NAmerica. I did get a student price on the one-way, but it would have been a better deal even if I had paid full price. In your case, if you can get a decent one-way to Cairo or some other city in Europe with cheap local OWE fares, I'd fly there, purchase a Europe-Australia-NAmerica OWE3, and just stay in NA once you get there. The only problem with that itin that I can think of is that I seem to recall there being some restriction involving OWE3's that include Australia; you may have to get a OWE4 to make that work, and stop in Africa or Asia en-route to Sydney.
I don't know how many miles you need to re-qualify, but if you need a lot, I'd consider using trains or discount carriers within Europe, as most of them will earn very little, if any, miles on AA. You would then be able to mix in a few mileage-run segments to cities you don't have to stop in. The point about credits from other carriers is a good one, though - had my LONE4 been a mileage run, I would have been severly disappointed with the actual miles that now show up on my AAdvantage statement.

dagSD