Beyond things like staff behavior, the airlines also make use of the info on creative routings for extra miles at little cost that we share amongst ourselves.

It's the classic dilemma in an intelligence (as in CIA) operation. We customers find valuable information, but making use of that information makes it vulnerable to having that information be invalidated.

Should we keep these fare specials, mileage run opportunities, etc... to ourselves or to a special mailing list?

Personally, I think the information should be shared publicly on FT, even if it causes the airlines/hotels to shut them down more quickly. The whole reason this community exists is because people share their knowledge. If we only share with people we consider friends, FT wouldn't be the place it is today.

As for our impact on the travel industry, I'd like to think they use this board as a free focus group of some of their best customers. Collectively, FT'ers fly a lot and stay at a lot of hotels. Trying to assemble a focus groups of this kind of wide demographics must be close to impossible, but the travel industry can get it for free here on Flyertalk.