The O.P. is correct, there was a time when Marriott's sales and marketing platform at Sabal and Royal Palm was "buy two Red weeks, and you'll have enough points for a World Trip every year (at that time: 7 nights in any Marriott Hotel worldwide, 2 round trip airline tickets anywhere Marriott's affiliated airlines fly in the world, and a 7 or 8 day Hertz rental car)." Each Marriott Vacation Club resort back than seemed to have their own, unique, sales and marketing catch: for example, at Desert Springs Villas I, it was occupy the studio, give Marriott your master suite to rent, and the rental income from your master suite will pay for your maintenance fee (and you'll still have a week of vacation at Desert Springs Villas I (in your studio)). At Summit Watch, when Marriott had sold out much of their Platinum, and later gold weeks, the platform was: buy a silver week, Interval is color blind, and use that silver week to go anywhere you want in the Marriott system.
Having owned at Sabal Palm, since pretty much it's inception, I look back at the years of wonderful vacations that our family enjoyed, and have no regrets. Those were the days. However, the value proposition of our Marriott weeks has changed (as it relates to points and rental income). We look back at the vacations that we have enjoyed, and our up-front, and annualized costs, and have no regrets. We got far more than our money's worth out of those weeks (in the day!). Now, our weeks have far less value to us, and our strategy is to look back at the many wonderful vacations that we had, and to enjoy those memories, and to look forward, and sell our weeks for whatever we can get for them.
What's that saying, someone's junk is someone else's treasure?