Ok VIP Benefits to 500,000 points(These are the only ones i personally know of, that doesn't mean this is all)
35% off reservations booked within 60 days...this means with your MF your getting about 10 days for the price of 7
Unit Size Upgrade within 45 days of check in...this is based on availability(rarely available), When it is Available, it allows you to use less points for a larger room, allows you to use the MF of a 1br(77k+ points) for a 2br (154k+ points) almost doubles the amount of weeks you can get for the same MF's...most of the time this isnt available...so no real value
TEN Complimentary Guest Certificates....This is mainly a benefit to those that rent their reservations, or who want to share their vacations with friends/family not on the deed...you only get one if your not VIP, If you run out they cost $99 for this Could potentially save you $891...if you use them..for most people this doesn't save much
ONE 11 Month Advance Reservations at NON-Owner resorts...Normal Advance Reservations for the resort YOU own is 13 months...for Non-Owners is 9 months...This gives you a boost over other non-owners for those places and times that book up REALLY fast...
Request Specific Unit Number when making Reservations....GREAT Benefit if you like a certain view or location at a certain resort...dozens of people here will tell you how important Ocean front is vs Garden or Parking Lot View
FREE Reservation Transactions....for 500k points, you get about 6 reservations a year...i don't know that you would need more then 6(short stays, long weekend stays?)...BUT if you did this saves you about $30
Unlimited Housekeeping Credits....This is really only important if you book short stays..as you already get about 500 with 500k points...But it could come in handy and if you need more Housekeeping credits this'll save you about $2.25 per
Early Check in at 2pm...If you've ever been to Bonnet Creek during a school break you know how annoying it is waiting till 4pm with everyone else...This is nice
Mid-Week Cleaning....I like this, as for some reason i tend to not have enough towels...and its nice them taking out the garbage instead of me...Thats just me though
Any there are more and more....But all of them combined, definately HAVE value
A couple of quibbles to an otherwise great summary. Plus, I'll add comments about VIP Platinum.
VIP Platinum gets a 50% discount within 60 days.
One of the reasons you have trouble getting upgrades 45 days before check-in is that VIP Platinum owners can do it 60 days before check-in. My experience with upgrades is pretty good for off season weeks, next to non-existent for popular weeks. I've upgraded prime weeks a few times which I attribute to the blind squirrel phenomenon. Now and then you can score an upgrade along with the 50% discount but again this is only likely for off-prime weeks.
Guest Certificates: VIP Platinum gets 15/million points, sufficient unless you are doing a lot of weekend reservations. To run out, you would need to have an average point costs less than 67K per reservation.
ARP, etc.: Non-owners can do standard reservations 10 months before check-in.
Specific Unit Number: This will be honored if the owner is the occupant. It may or not be honored if a guest is an occupant. Depends on the resort. My bad experiences have been at Ocean Walk -- guest paid for a specific ocean front unit, was assigned a city view unit at check-in. I like the points table at Ocean Boulevard (Myrtle Beach) -- upper/lower floor, ocean front/view. There you may not get a specific unit but you will get what you pay for. Ocean Walk should consider this kind of scheme.
Housekeeping credits: I've never paid any attention to them. I'd have to look it up. Maybe VIP Platinum is unlimited.
Early check-in: Concur this can be nice although we've been places that said, "We don't do that here." There's a string somewhere on TUG with more details. We don't get too many places that early anyway.
Mid-week cleaning: A mid-week "tidy" is nice for the reasons you say.
Newspaper: As someone said, it is the "comic book" paper (USA Today) during the week, a local paper on weekends. Actual delivery can be spotty or maybe the neighbors are filching our paper.
Add Unlimited Free Reservation Transactions: For me, this is important. I make a lot of reservations, cancel a lot of unsold reservations at the 15 day point, cancel a lot of reservations to free up points for something a customer wants, and I rebook virtually every reservation at the 60 day point.
There is some perk having to do with Exchanges. I use all 3 million points and haven't exchanged Wyndham points in years so I don't know how this works.