"They charge you to redeem the miles."
No they don't. The charges are for the airport fees that you would pay anyway.
I never have problems booking my miles flights. Have flown on AA miles many times to SXM for the minimum miles on weekends. Just have to book when the flights first come out. Works for us as we know with our fixed timeshare weeks when we need the flights and book 331 days prior.
To each their own but it works for us from the Pacific North West where R/T economy is close to a thousand pp. We are flying there again on miles with only one stop. I can't complain about that.