Every single seat on every single flight should be made available for awards at the same classic award rate not ridiculously priced any seat awards.
If the airline cannot make that work then stop conning people with frequent flyer points. I should not have to book 12 months in advance on any route or any cabin. Plans change. Life changes.
The airline can't make that work because it would bankrupt ANY airline to offer this kind of strategy - unless they made points/miles incredibly hard to earn, or at an earn rate that would be ridiculously small.
Yes, hugely customer friendly do to this, but very business unfriendly.. and while customer should ALWAYS be first if the business fails then it doesn't matter.
Remember, originally FF programs were born of airlines (I think it was AA?) thinking "hey, we can't sell all the seats on these flights.. how can we fill them?" morphing into a clever marketing plan. Genius! This is essentially still the case as anyone reading this knows - the core principle is to allow points redemptions ar a discounted rate (ie what QF calls "classic flight rewards") for a seat that would otherwise, most likely, go unsold. It's up to Yield Management to crunch the numbers and probabilities and history of demand and supply to figure how how that looks for a particular flight and route. Remember their goal is to maximise revenue not lower it, and pretty much reward seats are not making them much yield (though reducing liability it's true).
Looking at, as a random example, MEL-AKL for a Y seat is 18,000 QFF points classic reward one way (that's what is showing up on the site, though seems cheap to me points wise)+$166. Let's say the "value" of a QFF point is 0.5c which seems to be a reasonable average. That's around $90. Looking at a random date in November, which in theory is a low season, there's a "sale" fare of $387, a Flex of $762 and ironically a Business Sale fare of $702. If we take the $166 from the revnue fares (as those taxes etc are part of those too) then we're looking at $90 vs at least $297. So, at least based on what QF is charging, it's around $200 moire, or around 3x as much. And that's for a "sale" fare.
Now imagine the airline offered ALL of those seats at that 18,000 point level. That;s significantly below the going rate, let alone a mix involving regular Y fares (in the $400's) and flex - and YM will always ensure a mix of fares sold on any flight.
So basically the airline would most certainly not make any money, and lost quite a bit, if all seats were available as rewards (and assuming they were taken) at those levels.
Extend that simple example as a general rule systemwide and you see the problem....
Now sure, not every single seat on every flight would end up selling all seats as rewards specially on some routes, but under your idea many would - specially on high demand routes where the airliner would (can, and does) - and all airlines, not just QF - charge a premium because of the demand.
result: no airline.
So your idea is great for customers, but terrible for a business and then there'd be nothing to spend points on.
Very simple example of course, and I am sure someone could find a case where the numbers are different, but I think the point is still there.
I definitely understand getting out of the game, going BFOD and all the rest. of course. This makes perfect sense, but actually in your case you actually had the best mix because you were not just relying on one (eg: QF) source of awards but had another (VA) and that ended up getting you what you wanted more or less it seems... so the 'game" did end up working for you - at least partially. The handcuffs, specially in these times of reduced capacity and availability and off the charts demand after two+ years in limbo is a perfect storm of why FF can be a poor game to play, unless playing the long game (or one has enough status to leverage things to some extent)
Personally I see points as a side thing. I'm going to purchase flights or whatever with carrier X. If I earn in say QF, or some other program I have "loyalty" (ok status handcuff) with then that works obviously. but is probably not the primary concern.
I have a friend who is the ultimate game player. He ONLY books flights on points on various airlines/alliances. He almost never pays for a revenue seat directly except in dire circumstances, or perhaps cheap LCC options in Asia (and he may read this post and comment

). The way he operates is 12 months in advance and snaps up awards when he can, and he has the luxury to plan where and when he wants to go and multiple redemption options (eg: points in plans from BA to AS, VA to AC etc) to make what he wants, usually in J, happen more or less (of course these covid times and multiple changes have played havoc but still, that has been his strategy more or less, and it works for him pretty much from what I can tell.. and he has little or no status since he doesn't care - if he can get a J seat on TG or NH for example, status doesn't really help much). Now he's in a specific class of people who can both afford to do this in various ways and have long term plans. Not everyone can do this of course, but there are people who pretty much only deal in terms of points for premium travel. And he travels a lot.