MY COMMENTARY:
While I tend to agree with most of the noted trends, I still struggle with the notion of customer loyalty. Customers can be loyal to their families, church, alma mater, etc. But using the term customer loyalty when interacting with marketers makes little sense to me. For marketers looking for loyalty in life, I suggest that they get a dog.
However, I think the concept of developing an enhanced relationship with customers is sound. Discount cards and unwanted rewards do little to enhance this relationship and even less to encourage continuity of purchase.
The key going forward is to identify the needs of customers who spend considerable sums of money in their stores or on their products, that the marketer can uniquely satisfy. Achieving this, we allow the relationship, whatever it is called, to flourish.