It is all dependent upon one's personal circumstances. Your plan sounds like a good one for a younger person, wanaflyforless.
As long as we are working, most of our travel is paid for by our business and we have the opportunity to earn lots and lots of credit card miles and points without any real effort on our part. Once we retire, we will have to pay for our own travel and our primary mile/point earning power will go away, so for us, it makes sense to make hay with the sun shines.
Since we would like to retire within the next few years, we only have the opportunity for lifetime status on one airline--UA--unless we dramatically overhauled our credit card system, as start putting the bulk of our purchase toward AA. That's something I have thought about, but it has always seemed like too much work to shift everything around.
After we retire, we will only travel on miles and points so we will have very few earning opportunities. Since all of our international tickets will be in biz or coach, however, lounge access will not be an issue.