That's true, although I've always found them very useful and have so far never had any expire. Mostly booking expensive last-minute Economy fares however, increasing the odds for a successful upgrade. I'm a bit worried they might adjust upgrade cost or at least include fare classes above W as requiring more PlusPoints, but I guess we'll have to wait and see. Out of experience though any 'improvement/enhancement' on one side always brings some sort of devaluation along on other aspects.

Increased qualification earning with cobranded credit cards does indeed balance out the higher thresholds. However for other Premiers like me who have no access to US credit cards, these changes won't have any effect.