Except you can't UPGRADE on any of those airlines. So you are faced with using all your points + a bazillion $$ in taxes...
You can't seriously suggest that upgrade awards are that much better, particularly when you only had one route from PER anyway - that again seems such a QF mentality to have, there are how many thousand airports in the world and you can no longer upgrade to just one?!
-If you're upgrading you're still paying all those taxes, you're not magically avoiding them all unless FDing.
-To upgrade QF internationally you had to purchase a higher fare class than base economy so again more $$$
-Upgrades last I checked cost more now
-Finally on QF it comes down to some BS lottery where after they've taken all your money you find out no upgrade for you on the day. To be fair my success rate over the years has been 100% but I always hear the complaints... Still MH/CX you can know 100% before calling or going into the office.
So your upgrade option costs much more cash and is it really that fewer points? ADL/PER-SIN did once have a great 25k Y-J upgrade which is chicken feed. It does of course depend what sort of traveller you are, everyone keeps talking about domestic which hasn't changed much at all.
I won't say a flight will cost all my points but I'd certainly agree QF points are worthless and awards cost a lot (on top of high taxes), but the question was specifically is life over for a QFF member based in Perth and the underlying answer yet again seems to be QF is pants and their loyalty program rubbish in general, but no to the original question
Also it would certainly be nice if *O had a similar system to *A but I wouldn't hold my breath for it!