It's funny, as one who flies mostly for leisure travel on my own dime, I have reached the same conclusion. Not because I have received bad service - in fact I think UA has some great FAs. But just because the MP benefits, particularly for anybody below 1K are not sufficient to engender loyalty.

From the bay area, WN does a far better job on the short haul runs, both in terms of frequency, timeliness and sometimes convenience. While UA occasionally has better fares to LAX and LAS, there is a hidden cost to these fares in that you will have to pay a $100 change fee or just throw away the paper. Most of us can survive without F for an hour (and have to with TED) so there is really little that differentiates UA except for the convenience of SFO (and WN and B6 are moving in this year )

For midcons/ transcons UA definitely has an edge with E+ but access can be purchased for $299 a year so there is no need to worry about elite status or miles. As for F, if a 1k has trouble from SFO you can imagine what it's like for us peons. Contrast to AA where I can simply buy into F for $30/500 miles and am more likely to find availability. Again, I think this is where status brings the most value, but B6 and others are rapidly closing the gap.

I don't really have a lot of visibility into international, but from my limited experience I can see that UA's product, particularly C, is inferior to many others and superior to only a few. Moreover, many carriers are now discounting J for peak summer travel to the point where tix aren't much more than buying the required M/H fare and with no mileage req. So one has to seriously question whether it is worth sticking with one carrier to build up miles for a few years for the dream trip or alternatively buying an overpriced coach ticket that can then be upgraded with miles.

And let's not leave out the mediocre RCCs - isn't UA embarassed that DL, CO and even Alaska have better products (for less in most cases)? If I really start flying a lot I will have to consider priority pass.

Oops - no post would be complete without mention of the horrific service provided by ICCs. One can't even begin to explain how UA is killing itself compared with most of the competition, particularly AA, WN and B6 who managed to avoid bankruptcy without outsourcing service to incompetent poorly trained morons.

So in sum I pretty much agree with you except about the in-flight service. MP has been so degraded, and upgrades are so few, that it now is smarter to play the game in a new way. Buy the cheapest ticket you can find on an acceptable routing, accumulate miles everywhere, play the bonus and partner game, and then cash them in for the highest value you can get.

P.S. In reviewing this I realized I left out one huge plus - elite security lines. But even then there are many places without them (OAK, LAS) many places where it is not an issue (BUR) and easy ways to beat the lines in most other places simply through intelligent scheduling.