Josh, I'm quite aware of the Flyertalk thread. I helped add stuff to it in its first version, six years ago.

My initial reply here was by no means a complete guide, which is why I said I'd post more about it in a later post. As for having no idea how popular it is, I'm not entirely sure where you got that idea, but the concept of matching is indeed more popular than it used to be - simply because more people know that it is possible.

As for matching not being easy or worthwhile, now I need to question you on this. I know from experience that status matching has been, and still is very profitable on some airlines. On some it is a pain in the backside, and with others it is just a single email or fax away. United for example, still matched PremEx, which is worth about $600 based on free luggage allowance and E+ alone.

As for keeping status for years being "blatantly misinformative", I know someone who is on his seventh year of elite status, all based off a single year of real elite level status. It really isn't hard to match away from one airline and match back into them. Tricks like having an international address are not exactly reserved for the smartest people.