Lauren, another point I would like to make is that you state you are listening to your members in this forum. As you are making changes to the Award system, is it unreasonable to ask that you abolish the rule whereby a combination of a paid stay and an Award stay is counted as an Award stay and no points given. Similarly Points and money rates do not get Honors points. The rule has no logic to it and there have been many complaints about it here on Flyertalk. Same applies if you book 2 rooms, one paid and one Award - no points given. The rule discourages members from combining paid and Award stays. Now that you are allowing members to make flexible payments with points, it would also be good to know that Honors points will be awarded on the paid part of the reservation.
HHonorsRepresentative - Thank you for your involvement in FlyerTalk.
cjd raises some excellent points, which I hope in time you can address.