Personally, I find the 60 minute time much easier to deal with. Very rarely do I spend an hour or more online, but 30 minutes is just too short. And it really is a pain to diconnect & start over, especially when you're in a city with a slow ISP connection.

Starwood is a favorite of mine, but like Boomer I've avoided them for the past 3 months in favor of Marriott & Hyatt. They lost income from that, so what did they really accomplish?

I'm glad Starwood made this decision, hopefully Hilton will now also wake up.