I’ve rented points 5 different times now. I’ve put in room requests via touringplans each time. 5 out of 5 times I’ve gotten either the exact room requested, or pretty darn close - (OKW (exact room), BWVx3 (1 exact room, 2 where the assigned room was a few rooms downs from what I requested and met my general requests), BRV (requested a specific room on highest floor - was assigned that same room but on floor 1, which we ended up loving). Actually - the one time I didn’t get anywhere close to my room request was a non-DVC 1 night stay at POR.
I didn’t use any of the owners to have a request made - just the touringplans room request tool.
Just my 2 cents