Since the OP is a noob, it stands to reason that he/she is using other sources for research - coming to get an opinion from frequent travelers is probably just one facet of his/her project.

Give the people on this board more credit: we come from all walks of life, most of us here on in business of one form or another, and some people here are actually in the airline industry. I don't really care whether you share your point or not, but the "You people are too biased to think straight" line is crap.

A lot of us here are playing the FF game because we have to. If I want to fly somewhere, I have to buy a plane ticket and I have to buy the frequent flier miles that are bundled with it. On 95% of the routes I fly, there is no viable unbundled product - I am forced to buy miles. So since the airlines have forced me to buy their currency on every transaction I make with them, yeah, I want to maximize my value from the currency. That's where this board comes in...

Maybe we're getting off-topic a bit, but notice that hotels have recently unbundled their product and their points-currencies. I can choose to a room+points, or just a room. There are a variety of non-opaque products to pick from. Airlines have yet to go down that path except in very controlled situations on certain routes, which again leads me to believe that they are very, very happy forcing us to buy their currency on the vast majority of our travels - because it is quite profitable to them.