After several months of effort, the Wyndham lurkers were able to get me set up with a Melia award reservation. And they even comped me the night. ^
But there was a huge downside to my efforts. Because my experience showed them that the Melia redemption process was, indeed, FUBAR, they completely pulled it!

I expressed my strong disappointment at this move, and urged them to fix and restore this redemption opportunity at the earliest possible time.
Perhaps the lurkers could give us all a possible timeline for when to expect the Melia award option to return. And I apologize to anyone who wanted to redeem for Melia and now can't because of my own efforts to secure a Melia award. I had no idea that their supposedly "temporary solution" to the problem would be to pull this award option.