Hard to express in the title, but I was thinking, what if airlines only awarded miles based on the straight line (or Great Circle?) distance between your origin and destination, unless you had a stopover, and not as flown? I know that many of you think of convoluted routings to maximize the number of transfers and earn more miles, but from a business perspective, should an airline reward someone who's taking multiple segments when there is a nonstop in the market? Seems like that passenger (paying the same fare) is displacing revenue for a nonstop or "legitimate" connecting passenger on subsequent flight legs.

I know this isn't a popular thought - but in the spirit of frank and open (intelligent) discussion, thought it might be relevant since Mileage Runs were partially borne of the challenge in finding more miles, for less. How would this affect your Mileage Runs?