Oddly enough -- If Disney actually does double dip with Riviera Resales by charging $XX per point to allow those points to be used anywhere in the system, that would actually make me feel better, since I think it will actually help keep the resale prices from bottoming out (and prevent an imbalance in trading).
For example, if Disney says for a $20 per point one time fee, your points become tradable into other resorts (still don't get direct member perks though), I could see prices being about $50-$70 cheaper than direct prices ($130-$150), instead of being in the $100 range. This could be a win-win...direct owners get perks and higher resale if they need to get out, Disney makes $$$, resale purchasers get more options, and the market is more stabilized.
But that brings in all L14 and direct owners as having standing to contest.
Once DVD attaches a value to that part of what was heretofore a deeded interest, it causes actual harm to people from whom that interest was severed. And it transfers, by necessity, value from the real estate interest to the points themselves.
DVC goes out of its way to assert that points are tokens and have no value; only the real estate interest represented by those tokens have value. There’s very real legal reasons why they do this. It's a necessary fiction for the whole system to work as a legal "timeshare". It's why DVC prohibits charging a fee to transfer points (because doing so attaches value to the points themselves) and why you're not technically renting "points", but instead renting a reservation.
Charging to make points “whole” affixes a partial and real value to those points, contrary to DVD's contractual assertions to the contrary.
You can’t parse that such an upcharge is buying into the “real estate” interest as ownership of a deeded interest already has an appurtenance of membership attached to it and participation in the reservation component is a function of membership.
No. Any such upcharge would be assigning a partial value directly to points. That’s a contractual no-no. In order to charge to rehabilitate points, DVD would have to distinguish between what’s already a deeded interest and what they’re selling, and that would be the functionality/value of the points themselves. To the point, they can't sell you "full membership" to the club as an appurtenance of ownership without a whole world of dispute about what "club membership" as an appurtenance of ownership means in the first place. Were already sold deeds ever not attached to "full memberships"? The difference is in the value of trading into the reservation system, when do home resort points become trading points; the difference is in the value of a point. And right now, by contract and by law, points don't have any value.
Even in their promotion videos, DVD clearly points out that while they may say that they are charging X dollars/point, that's merely a representation of the value of the deeded interest they're actually selling you. But can't they just say the same thing about the upcharge, that the value is merely a representation of the value of a deeded interest addition to somebody's contract? Not without redefining the meaning of "club member" -- and the original designers of DVC made that a difficult task, indeed. If something is "added" to the deed that restores a right that already was a part of the deed - and remains a part of the deed for some members without that purchase, where that leads for DVD is straight into a legal mess.