40k is not necessary a conservative baseline. it is conservative in terms of how much you spent, but the impact on your comparison is less certain. a smaller figure will underestimate the value of cards with larger multipliers and will make cards with smaller multipliers appear more valuable in comparison. this could also be important when considering the AF, where a larger spend can sometimes justify a card with higher AF but higher multipliers

i think you hit an important point here. there is less value in simply earning more points if you arent earning enough for it to be useful for your purposes. with 55k, you may need to accumulate for at least 2-3 years, to redeem a one way ticket. there is also the risk of devaluation or program changes. while i earn citi points slowly to transfer to BR, i can also redeem the points as cash back. the custom cash earns 5x instead of 3x with the other cards for dining and groceries, so im getting 1.67cpp, which isnt exactly bad value

there are also rumors of a premium citi card. if it does offer 5x flight like the old prestige and if AA becomes a transfer partner, then that points could be more convenient for you, so do look out for it

while they may have less transfer partners, the value actually depends on what you are looking. firstly a longer list isnt better if you end up only transferring to airlines that are also partners with chase. and this is quite possible because chase are partners with quite a few mainstream ffps (you have AA for OW, AC for *A and AF for ST, popular ffps covering all 3 alliances). secondly, since you arent going to earn a lot of points for now, chase with their point boost feature could be very useful for you