I think we're again here getting to the discussion of the differences between a loyalty program and a frequent flyer aka rewards program.

As KARFA pointed out, these programs have developed from being ways of garnering brand loyalty to supplementary profit centres for airlines. One of the dangers I see is that this trend IMHO contradicts the alliance-like thinking of a group of airlines in that they are all chasing the same revenue, which would indeed favour a loyalty model. The loyalty model however means spending or incentivising passengers to your airline or alliance by investing in them or rewarding them. The current models merely feed back a fraction of what you spend in a more or less predictable way. This removes all aspirational elements of sticking with any particular airline or alliance, inserts the modern transactional nature in the business, removes any possibility of gaming the system for additional elements and consequently makes the schemes (again IMHO) downright boring.

The end result is that the modern schemes do not result in any incentive to fly any particular airline above the transactional cost of each flight booked. Coupling credit card or hotel spend into the same (airline) scheme encroaches on other well-established programs. Other interested parties like American Express, who with their Membership Rewards scheme have been offering the same thing for much longer, and IMHO much better, are far better placed.

I see no place for an alliance-wide FFP within OneWorld or for that matter any of the alliances. Indeed on the contrary, I see the existence of the alliances endangered by current developments, which are also a reflection of more separatist thinking on many levels globally at the moment. My approach has become to now join the FFP of the specific airline you fly the most rather than the alliance as I see further separation, or at least divergence, coming very soon as some airlines object to funding benefits for other competing airlines. Perhaps then we will see loyalty schemes reemerging.