OP: Marriott worst program or is it me?

Yeah, it's you! Forming an opinion on an entire program based upon one offered redemption is downright silly!

All of these programs can return frighteningly bad values, and astonishingly good ones. This can even happen at the same hotel, literally during the same weekend. I kid you not! Last year I stayed a weekend at the Marriott Marquis NYC. The Saturday night was $550, the Sunday $190. I redeemed 45,000 points for the Saturday night returning a very creditable 1.2cpp. I paid cash for the Sunday, had I redeemed it would have cost the same 45,000 points returning a dismal 0.4cpp.

I've seen values as low as 0.1cpp and 10cpp bandied around here!

I find IHG generally requires slightly more points for like-for-like redemptions, but elite bonuses are higher. Hilton generally requires considerably more points
for like-for-like redemptions but with the extra 5 basis points and near permanent promos those points accrue faster than anyone else. SPG awards the least number of points per $ spent, but it's redemptions are about half the like-for-like Marriott costs.

Last year I did a monthlong road trip visiting Toronto, Montreal, Adirondacks, NYC, DC, Niagara and small-town Pennyslvania and Ontario. Comparing earn and burn for all the big 4 schemes produced a return of 24% at Marriott, 22% at IHG, 21% at SPG and 18% at Hilton, suggesting Marriott had the edge and Hilton fell last, but it's important to realise I ignored credit cards as we can't get the great credit cards in the UK that you can in the US, and hence I know nothing about what's on offer, but I think both SPGs and HHs performance may be very much improved by their cards...

In short... All will produce great redemption bargains and dreadful redemption howlers. But Marriott is not the worst.