Boy, was I wrong about how sophisticated I thought I was concerning frequent flyer travel. And now, after reading these boards, I'm sprinting to 2MM on AA, bemoaning 500,000 MR points that could have gotten me to lifetime platinum so much sooner. Thanks, fellow obsessed mileage hounds.
Anyway, my questions:

Most of my travel is leisure travel at xmas and in the summer. I have never attempted to get free flights at xmas. In the summer, we have generally travelled to Europe. We've used TWA to Italy (they cancelled our Rome flight when they withdrew from that market (do they still have rights from JFK to Rome that AA can reinstate?), and flew us to Milan) and AA to London (for London and Paris) and AA to Paris.
With that as background, how do you get to Europe? My preference is obviously AA, but their coverage of that market leaves something to be desired (with London an obvious exception, and Paris improving with the addition of TWA's flight).
And, especially as an impending platinum on AA, I'd rather upgrade than get a free ticket.
Since I'd love the ability to return from a different city than the one I fly to, and a strong route system to France and Italy are important to me, are national carriers the answer? (I've read that Delta and Continental are not very useful, and I discussed AA above). I believe the most likely national carriers are not partnered with AA.
Is AMEX MR the answer? Help.