Actually, in Switzerland the taxe de séjour is considerably more if you stay in a higher level of luxury hotel, so it seems that they do differentiate there. The Swiss have had this charge for decades, though, usually around the 2-3 franc mark.

I guess, looking back on my statement "...it makes me think twice about travelling to certain places", I was thinking about those places that have jumped on the resort fee bandwagon, such as most of the USA (but I'm not going to be going there any time soon anyway). I was just wondering if the fee mentioned in the OP was a sort of mini resort fee rather than an overnight fee imposed by the local authority.