I've only stayed at the Vistana resort. I'mnot sure about the pool, it was a cold November when I was there, so I didn't try to swim.
Our two bedroom suite was huge. Everyone had plenty of space. We were inthe one of the newer buildings, I'm not sure which one. Our room was nice, the kitchen was big and clean. Behind our building was a stream that was pretty. We could have sat on our little patio and looked out at teh stream, but as I said, it was a bit cold to eat outside.
The location is close to WDW, but you still have to drive in each day. I know my way driving around WDW, and I still found it a tad confusing to find our way back one night. Getting fromthe resort to the parks was easy, but getting back was not especially well marked. You enter near the sports arena.
The Vistana is very near the outlet mall, behind which is a Publix. there are anumberof chain restaurants inthe area. nothing that really stuck out to me as anythign hugely special, but if you want offsite dinign, there are choices nearby. The only one I recall is the Waffle House. It gets pretty crowded becsuse it's next to Crossroads and DTD. (I refused to wait an hour for a breakfast table at a Waffle House !
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A considerable plus of the Vistana was having a reliable washer/dryer inthe room. Another plus was the two big bathrooms. the master bath was huge withthe whirlpool tub and shower stall. It wasn't super fancy like GF, but it was big and clean.
Mostly though, I'm an onsite fan. The biggest downside of SV that I found was how it kind of sucked us in to stay. Onsite, you have to get up and out to get breakfast. With a full kitchen, it took a while for everyone in my family to make their own breakfast. The kids in our group also got sucked in to watching the many channels of tv offered. (I kind of like that WDW doesn't offer all that many - it reduces the temptation to sit and watch tv.)
the second problem for us, was that in buying food we ended up buying a lot of food. In a group of adults on vacation - everyone wanted something different. We had four days, and you can't buy half a loaf of bread of half a box of cereal. So we ended up throwing away a good amount of food. Buy food carefully esp. if you'll do some onsite eating.
The second half of that exact stay, we moved to AKL and things went much smoother (the weather also improved) - even though we had no kitchen and far less space. But maybe that was just us. The Vistana resort itself was nice enough.
The Villages is newer and seems to be less crowded than the Resort overall. 
