Very true and I'm counting on it to be right.
I can't imagine what makes you a "glass half full" person.
I don't see any way (and from off-line conversations, neither does Ron Parise) that it will be economical to acquire VIP benefits and Presidential Reserve benefits. The question for me and many others is, since we are already VIP/PresRes owners, is there a way to make it profitable, even if only marginally so. I don't think there is.
Concentrating on high-demand weeks is certainly a useful strategy. It may be possible to rent Mardi Gras, Daytona 500, Bike Week, NCAA or professional championship event weeks and make a couple bucks with no discount or upgrade. Since it is just my wife and me on our account, the limit for reservations is two per event, unless I make reservations with other names listed as guests, knowing it will cost me $99 down the line.
Our only hope is that Wyndham never figures out how to implement the auto-upgrade feature and gives up trying. Even then, experience with canceled reservations reappearing in inventory has not been promising so I don't see cancel/re-book/upgrade ever becoming what it was.
Personally, I'll probably try to stick it out through 2018 (since I'm already out of 2018 points) and make a decision about divesting most of my Wyndham ownership, keeping a couple million points for our own use and an occasional rental at or near cost.