Hiya Leftie,
Agree with you to a point but the problems go much deeper than that. Due the delay and disruption that affects Cargo Ops you can find that you are rostered to report for a delayed flight at an outstation just in time to miss out on a dinner allowance when, in reality there is no chance of making the revised ETD.
Out of Base Allowance removes a lot of the opportunity and incentive to abuse the system from several quarters.