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All drama aside, and to answer the OP's question:
While there are many metrics to consider that help to optimize, in the end it all comes down to this:
Effort put in vs. money in the bank.
All affiliates should be splitting their efforts between multiple sponsors and measuring their true costs in terms of time and money vs. checks received.
I have even built my own program to promote and like many people here I have found that existing programs are better in some cases at monetizing my traffic than I am, even with the percentages they keep and the potential "shaving".
If "everyone shaves" then the playing field is level after all, if you want to be in this business you just have to take the best of the worst get what you can from it.
If you are doing a proper analysis of your EPC then it wont matter, you will still be making the most possible money for your efforts.
If you rely heavily on one sponsor, you need to keep a close eye on them and their competition and be ready to make a switch the second you feel they are taking your traffic for granted and someone else might be able to show more appreciation for it.
Shaving sucks and non payment sucks worse, if that is really going on, but even if AWE paid you for 1/4 of your total sales then their payouts would still be a little better than most other programs.
No program is ever going to pay you a dime more than they feel they "have" to. The only way to keep them on their toes is to leverage their competition.
At this point you've gotten AWE pretty dug into their defensive position and I don't see any way they would be motivated tactically to pay you at this point, it would be an admission of all the accusations you made and if I was in your position I think that in a moment of objective clarity I would know that it was a lost cause.
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