Quite the contrary. I suffered through over a decade of paid II membership - believing all along that somehow I was "doing it wrong" by using place & hope, differebt weeks, different resorts & comparing the results to RCI. I also eventually tried Request First and, finally, got a corporate (free) membership that was the ONLY way II was even a slightly usable option.
The bottom line was nearly every time we had to end up settling for some garbage time we really didn't want with place & hope. That despite using weeks that traded extremely well with RCI & SFX for the same periods. The request first did better as we at least got something CLOSE to what we wanted or simply didn't give them our time. Still far more hassle than it ws worth but at least there was a remote chance of some success other than accepting the usual II leftovers or lose the deposit.
The SAME OWNERSHIPS in the corporate (read priority) account yield top trades consistently - and points left over! So the only way we'd ever use II now is as a free, corporate member with all that brings. If I had to use II (because of a resort limitation - boo!) then request first is the only way to go. NEVER use place & hope, as I already said, or you will get the short end nearly every time. Those begging you to do so just want to grab up the good times & leave those depositing with the usual II trash to have to deal with IMO.
Being a paying owner in II is a total rip off. You are last on the list of II priorities.
I just don't share the same experiences. I get everything I want. However, my experience is that Interval does a terrible job of filling their requests. I don't think they have an automatic computer system that shoudl be doing it. I think they have human beings trying to fill them, and this slows the process down. I call them quite frequently when I have an ongoing request...and they sometimes just reach inside their magic bag and pull out what I was looking for.
I just want newbies to understand a few things. If you do request first, unless you are a Marriott or other corporate program, you can only request something up to your check in date. This is not always a good idea. For example, if you can only get a reservation at your home resort 12 months in advance (this is the way that 3 of my 4 TSs are), and I immediately put in a request, I can now only request 12 months out. Anyone who uses Interval alot knows that the best results come from requesting a tad more than 12 months out so that when the deposits come at 12 months, you can grab one.
So, if my Goal is to get August, 2011. I have to wait until I get my home unit this August before I can put in the request for August 2011. The only exception is my Marriott. If I did deposit first, I could have grabbed a top July 4th week, and then deposited it, and requested August 2011. My trade power would have been better with the July deposit than the August potential deposit.
So, I just want the information to flow freely. You have your opinion, and you are certainly an experienced TSer, but other experienced TS'ers(I have had Interval for 11 years as well) do not share your opinion. So, everyone should see how they do.