Looking at the discussion around frequency or times of service, there's no doubt the lack of options for departure/arrival times hurts QF vs EK/SQ etc.
Idealistically, I'd see the 787s go to QFi initially, multiple departures from cities currently served by 744s / 380s, and opening up cities currently under served (hello PER, ADL and BNE amongst others). They would then have the right aircraft to open up EU cities from their asian ports, and consolidate pax from multiple flights into onward flights. Basically the same as they do now in SIN, but in multiple ports (due to smaller onward aircraft) and for ports without sufficient onward carriage on QF metal, seamless transfer to other alliance carriers (like currently in HKG and BKK).
Smaller is sometimes better! LAN seems to be profitable "despite" predominately B763s and A340-300s, and multiple "hubs" (SCL, GUA and LIM to name three).