Virgin Atlantic offers business class perks in economy

That's the product Air Asia is offering with their XL seats!

I have not tryed Air Asia XL seat, but tryed JetStar Business. In fact it is no more then premium economy - nice enough for daytime flight and nothing exciting for overnight flight. And food, especially from BKK to MEL was trully dreadfull!!!

Air Asia uses the more common lie flat business class seat that for instance MH or GA has as wellAir Asia has an angled lie flat version).

So in essence a "proper" seat without the trimmings as you mentioned (you do get a free meal which is economy style and water I believe). JQ does indeed only offer Prem Eco style seating in their business class. Have heard mixed revies about the food, cannot speak from my own experience.

Correct, AirAsia X offers a lie-flat seat without trimmings. My parents have both used it KUL-SYD. You get a fair amount of space to stretch out, obviously, but it isn't that cheap outside of a really good sale. The complimentary meal is quite basic, of course - my parents both opted to have the meal after waking up (they were on the overnight flights last year).

So yes, you get a proper seat but LCC-style without the trimmings. Works for some of us, and it's certainly working for AirAsia X.

For which I am grateful, otherwise everybody would do it, and then the lounges would be packed. That's the trick with pricing these sorts of services -- make it so expensive that the vast majority of people don't go for it, but you'll still pick up a few random extra dollars along the way.

Virgin has some fairly unique lounges, by all accounts, so this is basically just their way of selling one-off lounge tickets without cheapning the access too much -- by bundling it with a whole bunch of other stuff you probably don't want. 

I'd really like to try the Virgin Clubhouse at Heathrow, and as a Velocity Gold I theoretically have access, but unless VS starts flying to Melbourne I probably won't have the opportunity to fly with them any time in the near future. 

I really doubt if they will get people to pay for this service. My guess is that a lot of people who fly more frequent will have access to business check in due to status and also have lounge access and if you are a one off flyer who wants a bit of luxury, wouldn't you pay the premium for Upperclass and have a premium expereince all the way? Businesstraveller had a good breakdown on the cost difference:

Business Traveller took a look at the price difference aboard a mid-October flight from LHR to JFK. A premium economy ticket costs £648.65, while an Upper Class one is going for £1,343.15, a difference of £694.50.

So for those happy to sit in premium economy, all Upper Class ground benefits can be had for £454.50 less than the cost of a full business class ticket.

An economy booking on the same flight costs £278.65 - therefore, an economy passenger opting for the Guest List product would pay £824.50 less than buying an Upper Class ticket.