Manchesters golden age is over. The truth is that with a STAR feed to Heathrow with BMI and a new fleet of A380s to fill the writing is on the wall....
When MAN first received QF, SA and SQ it was in the years of routings like LHR-BOM-KUL-SYD-AKL. So a natural progression saw MAN added to this global route map, and we got MAN-LHR-BKK-SYD-MEL and MAN-CDG-JNB etc.
Times have changed. We now have very successful services to most of the world's primary hubs (with one or two exceptions)....EWR, ORD, ATL, PHL, DXB, AUH, DOH and SIN. I fail to see how you think the golden age is over.