A lot of the negative posts around here are exactly that - Disney is a business. They also come in a few other flavors - it isn't always as easy to book what you want when you want as the guides and advertising will have you believe and because where Disney doesn't make money, they seem to be fairly good fiscal stewards of our money - room refurbs happen less often on the timeshare side of the house. I think that really the three big negatives come down to those three points.
Each of those points is not a huge deal if you are aware of them. And if you aren't aware of them, you purchase and then show up here disappointed the the discounts aren't bigger, no free dining, aren't rewarded for loyalty. You can't get into BCV in Early December or get a BLT standard room at 7 months or book a cruise because the dates you want are booked up for points - although there is cash availability. The room isn't as nice as the cash side of the house, the carpet obviously had some little kid spill juice on it that stained, the bedroom drawer was off its rails and you don't get clean towels every day. But if you knew these things going in, none of them are a huge deal and all are acceptable, perhaps even preferable (maybe the drawer rails need to be fixed more often then they are - but a lot of people like limited housekeeping).
The fourth type of negative post is the financial aspects. When I first arrived here in 2002 to find anyone who advised financial caution was relatively rare - there were a few - Dean's advised it for longer than I've been here. To listen to the majority of people here, this was a sure thing investment - you'd sell it for more than you bought it for. You'd save money - absolutely everyone did. It was rare that anyone questioned using rack rate in calcuations - or said "would you have ever booked two bedrooms for your family of four without DVC?" It was the best thing anyone had ever done (it doesn't hit my own top ten - but we adopted a child, bought a house for my dying brother in law, and I spent a summer in Europe - each of which is more valuable to me than DVC).
In 2009 we started to hear the stories about how overextended people were. About being upside down in loans for DVC that they shouldn't have gotten in the first place because their pre-DVC financial life wasn't stable. People not only lost DVC with job losses, they lost homes. And a lot more people became a lot more cautious in recommending that someone they didn't know spend $10k or more on a timeshare. The conversations made a decided flip to "this may add value, but you may or may not save money."
This is a very good post about negative posts.......and it's not negative.
Very thoughtful and informative. Thanks!