Well, I guess I wasn't familiar with the Northwest awards requirements. But it's been 25K miles on a lot of airlines for a long time.

Also, I think you folks are way overestimating what effect raising the miles needed for a free ticket have on most frequent travellers, especially those who do it for business. Those folks do not travel to rack up miles. They travel because they need to get from point a to point b, and the miles are a nice little bonus for them. And these are the folks who the airlines make most of their money on.