And what about the 16 Segment limit of AA's system?

I just bought a Circle Pacific using CX/BA/QF ex-LAX and it's all e-Ticket from AA.

Is AA's RTW desk still issuing paper tickets for 17-20 segment itins?

You pay the fare for where you start. If you want to start the fare in BKK then that's where you have to go. Otherwise, we would all default to Djbouti for our first class fares and not have to travel out at 0500 on a Friday only, or whatever the flight is to start that one.

There are lots of fare rule traps for you to fall into if you do not. I think that the only exceptions are US and Canada or Denmark/Sweden/Norway.

And that can have lots to do with the destination. For example, I had a DONE4 which QF wanted to e-ticket as it only contained QF/BA/AA flights. BUT one of the BA flights (BA number and BA metal) was HEL-LHR and BA's ground handling in Helsinki is done by AY, and AY's check-in agents use the AY computer system to do the check-in. They would not be able to see the E-Ticket since AY is not yet part of the OneWorld E-Ticket environment. Therefore I had to pay for a paper ticket to be ussued.

If it's no fault of yours that the airlines have to issue a paper ticket, then you do not have to pay for it.

AY uses AMADEUS. The SAME system as QANTAS, BRITISH AIRWAYS and IBERIA. So it does not make sense to reason that AY would not be able to see the booking. In fact when QF makes the booking, AY would be able to see the ENTIRE PNR as it is the same PNR # as BA, IB and QF all together!

I had to pay for the service of having the ticket printed by the QF ticket counter at the departure airport (BNE) since there was insufficient time for my TA to print the ticket at their Sydney office and get it to me before departure (after they found they were unable to issue an e-ticket). If I was in Sydney or the TA in Brisbane, there would not have been a charge for the paper ticket.
This is different to what the AY agent said when she was doing the check-in. She specifically said that BA (in this case the operating airline) only loaded the HEL-LHR and the subsequent LHR-FRA connecting flight into their system. I wanted her to check my lugguge beyond that FRA stop and she was unable as only those two sectors had been loaded into their system (according to the checkin agent). She said she could not see the rest of my itinerary in their system.

The issue also touches on destinations: many airports don't have the IT to access e-tickets, even though airlines might use the same system.Some countries don't have the legal framework to allow e-tickets. Some countries require a printed return ticket to give you a visa. It's a patchwork at best. AY in HEL is an IT issue, SIEMENS is the culprit.

AY is part of the OW e-ticket environment - at least as far as AA is concerned. Here's what a June 8 AA press release said.....

"American Airlines will become the first airline in the world to offer interline electronic ticketing with all its global alliance partners when it completes the roll out of the service with Aer Lingus and Iberia in the coming days, ..."

"American Airlines set oneworld�s interline e-ticketing progamme running with partner Finnair in May 2002, becoming the world�s first airlines based on separate continents to introduce this service. American connected up with LanChile last July, with Cathay Pacific and Qantas in November and British Airways in April."

"British Airways expects to be the second oneworld member to offer interline e-ticketing with all other oneworld members � making it also the second airline in the world to provide this convenience with all its global alliance partners. Besides its American Airlines link, it has been offering the service with Qantas since April and in the past few days has launched it too with Finnair. It aims to extend it to Aer Lingus later this month, with the other four oneworld partners linked up by the end of August."

Whether Helsinki is a problem because QF and AY don't yet have interline e-ticketing and/or it's something more specific to Helsinki, I've no idea....

Given that Helsinki is AY's home port, I don't think the problem is geographic in nature, but more one of QF/BA/AY technology limits. Hopefully this will be short lived.
but my point stands that even though I was not flying AY, and only using airlines that can to inter-line e-tickets (QF, AA, BA), I was still not able to e-ticket because I was traveling through Helsinki. So some geographic restrictions still apply to some OneWorld airlines issuing e-tickets. It sounds like AA has overcome these isuses according to their propoganda.