I could not agree more with this poster. You can do a hell of a lot of flying and be recognised by BA as nothing. In my experience, it is getting harder all the time to keep status with BA, and I'm thinking it just ain't worth it anymore.
As regards another comment earlier, simply because a BA ticket does not earn Tier points, it is simply not the case that the fare will be low (loco). You can pay a pretty steep fare with BA, yet still be told it doesn't earn tier points, ever.
Now that much of the BA domestic network has gone, and their Club Europe becomes more of a name and less of a product, I've calculated that by switching much of my travel to VS, BMI/star aliance, I can probably get *Gold and VS gold. This combined with my priority pass (free from Amex) covers pretty much all eventualities, and gets me in the wonderful clubhouses every time too. Plus I'll probably earn a helluva lot more miles.