Shudder - you'd have to pay me more than $500 to spend a weekend on an airplane. It's very tiring holding the things up by the armrests :-/
https://i.imgur.com/MA3YeuX.jpg
Let's spend one on a plane so that we can make it into the gold lounge and get free yogurt-covered raisons!
I suppose it makes sense if a single line is a year.
Each dot is 6 pixels wide, making it 52 x 52 = 2704 weeks (making each row a year).
You could get the number of days remaining by expanding this image about 2.6x along both axes.
You're looking at spending 5-10% of all of your weekends in a plane to maintain this status.
Being up in the next tier can earn you multipliers of the miles you actually fly and other perks, so it can be a fairly rational decision.
The only time I did an explicit mileage run (as opposed to taking a longer route to get to where I had to go anyway) I did a short hop from London to Madrid in First Class on a really cheap ticket, spent the day walking around being a tourist, and then probably paid for the ticket in the amount of booze I guzzled at the rather excellent Iberia lounge on the way back.
That was to keep good status with American. Having good status with American can making flying - gasp! - pleasurable.
First, if you have carry-on luggage and the flight is full, this guarantees you access to overhead space. That can be a big deal. Having to gate-check your bag can be irritating if you've got things in there that you need, and the longer the flight, the more important this is.
Second, at least on Delta, the people who board priority have a separate line. That line continues to exist even after general boarding starts. The upshot is that, even if you board with everyone else, you can cut the line and not have to stand around waiting. If you prefer sitting down to standing in a line, then this is valuable and good.
Third, and related to #2, boarding early means you're likely boarding with other frequent travelers. Those people are better to board with because they are quicker and more efficient, on average, about things like clearing out of the aisle, getting settled, etc. This means less waiting around and being jostled in the aisle.
All of this adds up to a much more pleasant experience.
All of those are hugely valuable, especially stuff that saves you time at the airport. A huge problem with air travel is that airports are located usually far away from anything of consequence, and the requirement to arrive absurdly early (to navigate luggage, check-in, security, etc) adds huge chunks of time to a flight.
I have priority with United, but I still try to board late - I hate being stuck in a shitty tin can - but the rest of the benefits are enormously pleasant.