It really all depends on how much you were going to plausibly fly... Segment qualification only makes sense for those who are trying to reach EXP cheaply, but fly enough non-MR trips that MRs to finish off the 100K EQMs are cost-prohibitive.

Let's say for your non-MR trips, you get around $0.07 cp/eqm as your average fare (pretty good for non-MRs).

That would cost $7000 to qualify for EXP. Now. Using purely segments, you could easily qualify flying a nonstop short-hop for about $85/flight (See LAX-LAS or DFW-AUS). That would cost you $4250 to qualify for EXP using short hops alone. For those who try to do the other extreme, and pure MR it, let's say you can find enough fares at $0.03 cp/eqm on your MRs in order. That is $3000 on pure MRs.

Strategy-wise... I'd take my planned necessary travel amount and take that $0.07... let's look at scenarios:

Planned Travel: 40,000 miles (*.07) = $2800 of constant travel.

So now you have options: Fly 60,000 MR miles (*.03) = $1800
Or fly your remaining segments to reach 100 segments.

With $1800 in MR travel, you could have alternatively traveled 21 short hop round trips, or 42+ segments. If your 40,000 miles took up more than 58 segments at this point, it is wise to go with segments. Seeing as how 40,000 BIS miles on 58 segments would average a maximum of 690 miles per segment, this is probably unlikely.

Moving forward with this example, you fly 10,000 miles on MRs, so you have now spent $2800 + (10000 * 0.03) = $3100 for 50,000 miles.

Options again: Fly 50,000 MR miles (*.03) = $1500
Or fly your remaining segments... so instead of $1500 in MRs, you could fly 17 segment trips, netting you 34+ segments. So now if your MRs and Constant flying segments are more than 66 segments, it is wise to go with the segment route. This comes to around 757 miles per segment... which is increased from 690... However, with added MRs, you probably have a lot of short-hop segments, as these are key parts of the MR. So at this point it might be plausible to have flown only 757 miles per segment.

As a reference point, last year I flew a little over 1000 miles per segment.

As always, YMMV... As you can see, segments to re-qualify in lieu of MRs (when you can find good MRs at $0.03 cp/eqm) does not seem the be the best route. If there are no good MRs available, then segments are a good way to re-qual... but I don't think you have to worry so much about those who didn't "earn it" the hard way. In my estimation, the majority of those short-hoppers who will now be EXP have already paid a hefty sum over our MR-qualifying buddies.