What is fine about it? What place does it have?
There's only three reasons for this deliberate airline subterfuge:
1) Misleading the masses into thinking it's only one flight, thus increasing the number of unhappy customers
2) Underpaying the passengers their FF mileage
3) Underpaying the government their fees
If there is any actual reason for this nefarious practice, I would like to hear it. The last few "direct" flights I have been on have all involved different aircraft, flight crews, terminals, etc. It's hard to make any assumption that this isn't just a marketing scam.