I was thinking about this same thing last night. When it comes to AP discounted rates, people seem to fall into one of four catagories:
A: Those who book a place they can afford at rack rate hoping for a discount so they can upgrade to a nicer room category at the same resort or to a more expensive resort,
B: Those who book a place they cannot really afford, in hopes that discounts are announced and if not, they will downgrade,
C: Those who don't even reserve a room at WDW unless and until discounts are announced,
D: Those who book what they can afford at rack rate and if discounts are announced they make no changes to their reservation, they just have more money to spend on other things on the trip like more table service meals or souvenirs.
This new program benefits only those in category D, and I think that's a small percentage of us here on the DIS boards. From what I read, I think there are a lot of category A types here -- book what you can afford but upgrade when discounts are announced. I'm a category C type myself -- I don't even book anything until discounts are announced. With this new program, any discounted rooms go first to those who sign up for the Best Rates program and the rest of us get what is left, if anything. Prior to these changes, we were confident we'd be at the head of the line to get the discounts since we're all so diligent in monitoring these boards and mousesavers.com, ready to call CRO the instant any discounts become available. Now we're going to be at the end of the line, and that is making a lot of us anxious about our chances of securing room discounts for our next trip.