When all your long hauls are in premium cabins, all the benefits the airline elite status have, in theory, the passengers of premium cabins have them even travel in award tickets. Note - the elite status benefits are "in theory" that not always materialize while the benefits associated with flying premium cabins, are guaranteed.
So why does one need any airline status, when you enjoy all the benefits by virtue of your booking class?
Now, if you are smart enough like a few friends who have achieved Life Time 1K long ago when such thing was still possible, that is a different story. The friend who finally made us visit South Africa, got their life time 1K by conversion of their Continental top elites which they earned when they lived in Houston and basically went to Australia every 9 months on top of their European trips - they flew enough to make them CO top elites year after year when at the time airline status only based on miles flown, not any $ spent... (airlines starting with DL, wised up a few years ago, not only there are elite qualifying miles but also elite qualifying $)
Another friends we met on a Ft. Lauderdale to Barcelona TATL cruise, the family had trading business between US and Hong Kong. The husband flew the round trip 6 times a year. Not only he got the 1K but he and his circle also learned about the UA life time lounge access benefit after achieving certain elite leve, would permanently go away. Before the cut off time, they did a couple "mileage run" to seal the deal. So at the time we met on the cruise, they have life time UA lounge access.
Many "million milers" actually have no clue of mileage program, let alone how to maximize the program rules. I am not kidding.
We do have lifetime AA Golds which were from earning miles long time ago when AA counted any mile earned from any source. The rule was changed many years ago. In the past the lowly Gold can select seats at booking, eventually this benefit is reduced to only 24 hours before departure, plus all other benefits you can have by just owning a $95? a year Citi AAdvantage card.
The only remaining useful AA Gold is the OneWorld Ruby let you check in at priority counter when travel on OneWorld partner. Again, this is only useful when you fly short haul coach. When you travel in premium cabin, you always check in at the Priority counter, so that benefit is 1) hardly used, 2) not very meanful anyway.
For a brief run down of the most common loyalty programs, airlines first then hotels.
Currently, the most useful Domestic US airlines miles are UA and AS, for the award travel. Nobody can beat Star Alliance's coverage on both Europe, Asia and South Pacific, even Africa. The lacking is Middle East. You just need to look at the member list to see this. The cost of mileage ticket is not astronimical like DL. Availability is reasonably OK as long as you know where to look and when to look.
AS niche is its mileage redemption charts - it has a chart for each partner, all different, and several of them are downright cheap - people constantly worry it would be devalued especially after AS joined OneWorld. Plus AS allows a stopover on oneway International redemption.
One year we were persuaded by a friend to redeem for one way return from Melbourne on Qantas F at 70K... because such was like a unicorn you did not usually see it... Then we found a way on how to go to Australia... Long story short, still AS miles going thru Hong Kong, but at 2 redemptions - US-HKG, HKG-SYD. When all were said and done, the friend could not go due to her boyfriend got sick. We went anyway. The highlight of the trip was the 5 days at Sheraton On the Park at Sydney, every evening we had Sydney Rock Oyster and palm-length Pink Shrimp every night at the lounge, thanks to my Marriott elite status. My husband very much enjoyed being remember by name at the lounge and his beer came soon after he sat down. 
(We went to Australia many times, the Nov 2018 trip was probably the 6th or 7th time.. so the city is very familar to us.) The down side of this trip was, our return to US was Thanksgiving Week - there were NO award seats except 2 coach LAX-FLL on the previous America West flight, 5 days after we return to US. I thought about going down to Mexico for that week before flying home but that idea was vetoed by my husband. 
Aeroplan of Air Canada is a close second, a large part is also due to being member of Star Alliance.
AA in the past (when we got our lifetime Gold) was the best program. Unfortunately ever since US Airways bought AA and Doug Parker became the CEO, AA program was steadily going into toilet. It is really tough to get an AA Saaver on the US-EU routes on AA's own metal therefore avoid the ridiculous BA surcharge. The ONLY usefulness now is to be able to book QR flights (and a high value redemption), for us anyway. With the QR/BA alignment, the dynamic is shifted. As I mentioned several posts ago, suddenly BA Avios becomes a much more interesting "currency"!
On the other hand, hotel status is very important. The only chain I do my best to maintain the mid tier status is BonVoy because it guarantees free breakfast / lounge access and other fringe benefits on all bookings.
Of course you can get this with Hilton HHonor by just having a $495 AMEX card, instant Diamond. Or if you are fine with just being Gold which only offers Continental breakfast which in US domestic properties is a bad taste joke, no lounge access except stay at the lounge floor, then you can get certain AMEX cards which offer the complementary Hilton Gold. Hilton chain makes this very simple.
IHG finally ups its ante on elite benefits by introducing free breakfast for their top elites. Before, only Royal Ambassdor has lounge access and free breakfast at InterContinentals. Royal Ambassador is by invitation only. They revamped their loyalty program in June, now more inline with the other chains.
Hyatt might have the best but also the hardest to achieve benefit-rich elite status as only the top tier Globalist would receive those generous benefits. The best of all is Globalist can book stay with points in his account for a friend, under the program of "Be My Guest". The guest will then enjoy full Globalist benefits during the stay. In 2019 upon learning we would be going to Tokyo and Okinawa before doing a Circle Japan cruise, followed by a TPAC cruise back to Vancouver, my German friend offered to book me "Be My Guest" for a stay in Tokyo and in Naha, Okinawa, using the points from his account. That kind gesture saved me 5K Hyatt pts because in Tokyo one of the nights only room with lounge access was available for redemption. With "Be My Guest" our stay enjoyed full Globalist benefits and the rooms were booked by him. So I canceled all my bookings, later filled out a form to submit to Hyatt to transfer points to pay him back (both I and he needed to sign, paper form) then he faxed to Hyatt. Hyatt transferred the points from my account to his account.)
I am sure if you can throw away the old books and learn the game with totally new perspectives, you will find there are still a lot of value in the miles and points games once you understand how to play it.
Now if you simply pay to obtain these benefits from out of pocket money, then just ignore all the above as I haven't said anything. 
