Even so,

1. If the connection is encrypted, the connection is encrypted. This is a separate, but related, issue from MITM attacks.

2. Yes, it's certainly possible for IT departments to put SSL appliances on their networks that allow them to decrypt SSL traffic on the fly and execute a MITM attack, essentially. Companies that do so also need to ensure that the appliance doing the MITM attack has a certificate that is installed on all client computers. This is unlikely in the extreme for a random hotel user wanting to access the internet. If someone is targeting you for something like this, you've got bigger things to worry about! Or am I misunderstanding something about how these MITM appliances work?

3. I tried running IBM.com through that tester website you mentioned, and it got an "A" grade.

4. What are the substantive problems you mention?

I'm not saying SSL/TLS are perfect, just that they have been around for a long time and are pretty well understood. For the average user who wants to check his bank account from a hotel, I'd have no trouble saying that using https is more than adequate protection.