I really think it depends on what your family is used to and what they can tolerate. We were almost always a family of 5, 6, or 7 when we were traveling with young kids. We traveled to Disney with 4 & 5 yo's a few times. Even when we were traveling with just 3 kids, we always chose 2 connecting rooms at Pop Century (pre-AoA days) over 1 room that could accommodate 5 people (like POR). Here are just a few things that made us prefer more space over less cost.
1. Two bathrooms
2. Two sleeping areas -- very helpful when younger kids need to be in bed by a certain time but the adults would like to watch some TV or just talk awhile before going to sleep. Same in the morning -- adults could get up earlier than the kids and get ready before waking the wee ones.
3. Enough beds so that no kids had to share a bed. They're all restless sleepers and are used to having their own beds at night. They do sometimes share a bed if we're just going away for a night or two, but they're constantly waking each other up and then they're tired and cranky the next day. Extra beds (and an extra room for that matter) came in very handy one year when 3 out of 5 people in our family got sick (all different ailments) at some point during our trip. We were able to quarantine the sicko of the day.
4. We also look at our room mostly as a place to shower and sleep (which is why we typically stay at Value resorts -- we would never use the extra amenities we would pay for at higher levels) but the extra space came in very handy the year it rained for hours and hours every single day of our trip. While we still spent a lot of time in the parks, we did spend more time in the room(s) than we normally would since we weren't swimming and strolling around the resort in the evenings like we normally would have.
5. Two TV's. We'd let the kids watch Disney movies or cartoons in the evenings while getting them ready for bed and giving them a little "wind down" time before sleeping. We could get them settled in one room while we watched something else for our "wind down" in the other room.
6. At AoA, a suite is going to give you a much better location in relation to the mail building and bus stops. It will be a shorter walk at the end of a long day of walking in the parks. And if you're using the refillable mugs. If you're using a car for transportation then it's not as big of an issue as you can park fairly close to the LM buildings.
For us, we'd spend the extra money for a suite (even with only 4 people) just because it will make our vacation less stressful and more enjoyable. However, there are plenty of families who just get a standard room with 4 people. We aren't big fans of character meals or table service meals in general (we do one or two a trip at most) -- so we'd spend the extra money on the room.
