I ended up flying AA last year because irrops made me miss my JL connection. I was surprised at how nice the AA flight was. IMO AA has lots of little advantages over JL that help compensate for its shortcomings:

Better service flow (meals are faster, and the second meal is served closer to arrival, so they don't turn on the lights ridiculously early and wake everyone up).
Far better IFE.
Better dessert choices (as silly as the ice cream sundaes are, they are reliably good and always a good fallback if the other desserts are uninspiring).
Better lav-pax ratio than JL, at least on the 772s.
Much better overhead storage in J compared to JL A35K. (You may think I'm silly, but I've had experience on JL where the person across the aisle put their bag above my seat and then came to the bin multiple times during the flight, which then places their face right above my seat, which kills the privacy of the doored suite.)
J boards first (not after a million OWE members).
Decaf coffee that's actually good. (JL stopped serving Decaf, but the stuff they used to serve was garbage anyway.)
The Super Diamond seats on the 789s and over half the 772s are really nice. Not as good as Apex window seats, but better than Apex aisle seats.

I guess everyone's priorities are different. None of the advantages you listed is material to me.

I hope someone from JAL sees this post. When JALPak seems to be giving up on JAL it is really serious.

Well, I did say they were "little" things... although I'd wager that things like seat comfort, IFE, and not getting woken up three hours before arrival are not trivial to a lot of people.

That is true, cause most of the international routes are only from Tokyo. I don't know if you are based in Tokyo or not, so I used Japan lol... I think it might be easier to make a decision if you are in Osaka cause you likely have to transit anyway so it's easier to choose another foreign airline and stick with it. I do wonder what other options you have in mind if you are based in Tokyo? I mean I do make an effort in the past to fly via Tokyo on JL to other places even though I am not based in Tokyo, but what would be your options?

I am not too sure about that cause I don't think NH is much better than JL in most (or certain) areas. JL and NH are shoulders above the American carriers but they are probably 50/50 to each other in many area. Some NH wins, some JL wins (or loses if you think they are racing to the bottom). Then, if you are based in Tokyo and don't opt with JL or NH, it's not going to be very fun to stick with UA's membership program and then fly SQ or LH (as an example) to Southeast Asia and Europe with multi-stops when your destination is neither Singapore nor Germany.

Nope, not Japan based. I've already provided options in my previous post

Note that their food sucks and have a very different service style. Their lavatory is kind of dirty (esp in Y) and they have a different passenger base who would more likely prioritizes individual need over the collective experience. But their IFE is nicer and you can't beat their frequency though.

If you look outside the alliance, OZ is very competitive priced (at least for my usual route) but it will probably go up after the merge. Just don't expect good old JAL service. They have limited food options and very outdated J seats without wi-fi on their A380 fleet.

Another advantage that US carriers have over JAL: they know that you can't make a Bloody Mary by mixing tomato juice with vodka and handing it to the passenger with packets of salt and pepper.

Ah I see, then there are many options if you are not based in Japan.

I do agree that if the airline provides a stable yet free wifi (I don't really use IFE these days except for the map), I would be just fine just with a lie flat bed and some edible food for the entire flight if the fare is cheap enough in Business.

I haven't been flying alliance airlines these days. I only flew JL twice last year and have only 1 NU flight this year. The rest have been on BR, CI, JX. Direct flight has become a priority for my mom and unless it's F via Tokyo she isn't really interested in flying stopovers.

Along those lines, the cocktail selection on JL is indeed kind of pathetic. (I think there are only two or three on the menu?) Even ANA offers more.