No. Most of the hotels you want to redeem at are 35K-70K. I've gotten great value from both Marriott and SPG category 1 & 2 hotel redemptions. It depends upon where you need/want to go, and why, and it's silly to suggest that everyone will always be looking for the same properties.

Besides, that's completely irrelevant to the question of how they're going to be combining the charts. The people who are most freaked out about this are assuming that "Marriott Category 7" means "Combined Category 7" and "Marriott Category 8" means "Combined Category 8." I think it's far more likely that most Marriott Category 7 hotels end up in Combined Category 5 -- 35K points per night -- and Marriott Category 8 and 9 hotels get split between 5, 6, and maybe 7.

Look, it's not like this is some unique opportunity for Marriott. They could have created a Category 10 years ago if they wanted, or they could have made Category 9 worth 60K points per night when it was introduced. They didn't do these things, not because they used to be kind but now are mean, but because it didn't meet their business goals. So, if being at 35K got them the number of redemptions they wanted before, it's likely that they'll keep a property at 35K. They're certainly not going to raise a redemption rate from 35K to 60K just because the category number matches. By the same token, SPG Category 5 properties are more likely to end up in Combined Category 6 than Combined Category 5, even though the category number is different. (And RC Tier 1 properties certainly won't end up in Combined Category 1!)