5x UR when paired when CSP or CSR is great, but for me the simplicity (using your term ) of just using the Gold at my local supermarket trumps that. 3x from Citi Premier is very good for $95 but like I said for someone like me that uses the $25k max, I will pay $230 to get another 25k points plus $120 uber plus $120 dining (and maybe even plus $100 Resy if I can find it useful).

There's always this conversation when cards are refreshed and AFs increased regarding the continued value of a card and I find at the end of the day it's always going to be a personal choice. What works for one doesn't necessarily work for all, there's no one size fits all approach, and also your needs can change over time. Just as an example, we used to do a lot of shipping and put those charges on the Gold business for 4x, but we changed to a business that doesn't ship often at all but does do a lot of online advertising which also gets 4x on that card. When that card was refreshed and shipping was dropped as a category it didn't matter to us as our current top category was still getting 4x, while for others it was a loss of an extra 3 points on thousands of dollars annually.