I have never really understood why the legacy and trust points would not be equal in what they could do. The way I see it, if you EXCHANGE your week for points, then the trust holds your week for that year and you get points to access the trust. It has always seemed to me that the required exchange was you giving up your week for points. Perhaps that is finally being acknowledged.
Let me suggest an extreme, hypothetical example of why Trust points still have to make it into the exchange pool before they can be booked by owners who opted for points with their Enrolled weeks:
Imagine a year when absolutely no owners of Enrolled weeks opt for points. (I told you this is an extreme, hypothetical example.) Trust owners would have no ability to book the inventory owned by those weeks owners. The weeks owners would expect to be able to use that inventory themselves. The Trust owners would not be able to book that inventory because none of it would have made it into the Destinations Points exchange pool. If you're a weeks owner, and Marriott Owners Services were to give your "inventory" (your week) and that of other owners at your resort to Trust owners, they would be stealing it from you.
It works the same way the other way around. Owners who now buy Marriott Destinations Points own points that are backed up by Trust inventory. They can reserve that Trust inventory. But as an Enrolled owner, I can't reserve that Trust inventory directly. I don't own it. (I only have access to Trust inventory that makes it to the exchange program.) Imagine a year when absolutely all Trust owners exclusively book Trust inventory and no Trust inventory goes to the exchange program. In this example, as an enrolled owner, I would not be able to exchange into Trust inventory, even if I opted for points. I would only be able to use my points to exchange into inventory from other Enrolled owners who opted for points.
Of course, this example will never happen. But this extreme case explains why there has to be an exchange program. Enrolled owners can't treat Trust inventory as if they own it, any more than Trust owners can treat traditional weeks as if they own them.
With an active, efficient exchange program (and diligent inventory management by MVC), owners in both categories don't have to be aware of the finer distinctions underlying the program. Enrolled owners and Trust owners use the same point charts and have access to the same resorts. In some cases, confirmations are immediate; in other case, waitlisting comes into play. We won't always get exactly what we want, but for those of us who don't mind some advance planning and flexibility, the system should work well.
However, that doesn't mean that any of us have direct access to what we don't own. For example, Trust owners only have access to weeks inventory at Marriott's Grande Ocean on Hilton Head to the extent that enrolled owners there opt for point, and I, as an Enrolled owner, only have access to Trust inventory to the extent that it makes it into the exchange program because Trust owners are initiating exchanges.
As noted earlier, "inventory" does not have to mean specific nights at specific resorts. It only has to be the "currency" to provide access into Trust inventory.
It gets more complicated when you consider factors such as inventory deposited into II (from the Trust side and the weeks side), as well as unsold Trust inventory that Marriott can use however they wish (including to prime the exchange program to build up its longterm health).
