The loyalty program to me seems very old fashioned but is not better or worse than other airlines. The redemption process certainly not very user-friendly especially for booking for the whole familly, but it has improved significantly with the recent website update.
Now you can at least view availability of both award tickets and upgrade award for a certain week instead of having to search day by day and by cabin, it is a huge improvement compared to the previous web site.
Also the cost of a business class ticket is probably the lowest in the industry and do not have seasonal fluctuations. That is the best perk if you compare against US-based airlines.
Of course, if your travel dates are flexible you can book off-season with US airlines or even JAL for a pretty good rate but likely still more miles for business class. On the other hand, the economy class miles requirement is unusually high based on industry norm.
To me I would only use the miles on business class upgrades or full business class tickets otherwise the value is really bad.
Normally I would aim for upgrades instead of award tickets if only waitlist is available on the dates I want to travel. That way the worst case I can still have a seat in case my business class upgrade doesn't clear.
The most annoying aspects of this programs are 1. miles expire in 3 years no matter with no possibility of extension unless you pay, and even so you only get extra 6 months. (most other airlines don't do that)
2. You have to buy more expensive tickets to get upgrade eligibility. (But this is also not different from other airlines)

All in all, I think the Eva program is on par with other airlines with it's pros and cons. The recent website update that makes availability visible is actually better than many other airliens. I really greatly appreciate that feature. It saves me a lot of time and also avoid unnecessary web site workloads on their end.
That is said, if you mainly redeem economy class awards I would rather go with United for miles accural. I can usually get better rate with United even for EVA's own Economy class tickets and it's not hard to get EVA economy on UA website. (But almost impossible to get EVA business award on United miles)