If I want to keep an eye on cheap tickets at the pointy end of the plane, what's the best way to do that, or am I already doing that here at AFF?
Flights out of australia on 1st tier carriers don't usually benefit from discounted fares. 2nd tier sometimes have 'specials', 3rd tier pretty much available most of the time.
You might find the odd AU-USA in the $4500 range, you might find the off AU-Europe for about the same. But the real premium fare deals are usually from other places like Colombo, Cairo, Bangkok (sometimes) or Kuala Lumpur. Ex Asia you might find cheaper fares from Korea.
AFF is good to find some fares originating from Australia - the '$4500' range. But the good value 'everyday' fares don't usually rate a mention. Examples of this are the fares offered by Hong Kong Airlines exOOL - $1700 business class return to Hong Kong or China.
AFF also has one or two fares exAsia to Australia - the UL deal to AU exCMB for example.
But for real discount premium fares you need to be casting the net wider, checking a variety of blogs, bulletin boards and doing your own searches on gogleflights, ITA, OTAs or various airline websites (the UL business class return BKK-HKG for AUD240 being an example, although the deal was reported on AFF).
