OP I fully understand your frustrations! I too many years ago ran into it with a different chain.
What a person needs to know is what room type at a given hotel ( can be different hotel to hotel), is considered a Standard Room for an award. Now what can be confusing is eg a King Bed reg size room plain room is showing for a rev stay yet not for an award stay , reason could be its on a high floor and thusly not apart of the award rooms inventory, or it faces the river again not apart of the award room inventory, as each of those wouldnt be considered a Standard Room for awards
Its just as others have posted the games that the hotels play, but then again we too play many games that the hotels dont like