IIRC someone stated in that thread that all hotels in Italy were 8000 points at that time. Well, the other day I was going through a list of hotels at the Choice webisite sorted by country, and in Italy I couldn't find a single hotel that was 8000 points (but I didn't check aboslutely all of them). Best I saw was a Rome hotel that is neither of the two being discussed here before that was 16000 points I think.
Of course, this being "mainline" Europe, remember you can earn points, not just burn, in places like Italy. And some places the rates in money for some of these hotels may be a lot better (at least sometimes) than using up points.
Save the points for trips to Scandinavia, where you can only burn (not earn). And I just checked, and Norway and Sweden are still mostly 16k a night.