If you know the answers then why bother posting if your going to be denied or not? If you think its safe to use an agent, then use an agent.
It's not hard to work out, that apart from Vientiane ( At the moment) the majority of Embassys and consulates in the region, are denying more and more people using back to back Tourist visas to stay here.
By the amount of comments on this page regarding online working, if there was ever a poll, it would show at least 90% of people visiting Thailand are living here and working illegaly as Tourists.
i can see what Air Asia have done. They have chopped the KL schedule, which because KL is a transit hub for there other routes, it's effecting those too. They have increased the Chinese destination schedules with those Aircraft. The Domestic Ubon route has now been discontinued completely. The Phuket route in the meantime, can be had for less than 500 baht, even in December and January. Apart from the Chinese, traffic must be way down for them.