That is what I guessed would be better. Marriott has no incentive to get me the most value for my week if I leave it up to them.
Strangely, in the past, I have had better success using Request First. But this is not comparing exchanges into the exact same week and resort over the years. However I use to be able to trade into Ko Olina, Hawaii fairly easily with request first. Last two years I did deposit first, and waited 4-6 months and didn't get what I wanted when I wanted it. But all of my requests were for top 50-100 rated (on TUG) resorts in their high seasons. I also think the difference may really be I forgot that back when I was getting easy trades, my kids weren't in school full-time so we didn't have to limit ourselves to summer and school vacation weeks. But that's another topic....