I discovered if I moved my days around a bit I could make the Phoenician happen (it was showing as crazy expensive because on two of my original days there were no normal rooms available). The cash price is still insane, but the points price is in line with bonvoy-ing of points value this last year. After looking at the traveler photos on tripadvisor (they're always so much more grim than the official photos) it seemed like the Kierland was actually just pretty standard conference hotel grade (and I saw what you meant by a bit busy) and the JW Desert Ridge seems to have a lot of recent reviews suggesting a sort of lackadaisical to quality (which is a shame, because these reviews only seem to come up in the last 6 months or so).

If I can do the Phoenecian numbers-wise, should I just do that? No lazy river, but does have a kid zone water area, and seems like the same rip off prices people complain that the JW has but maybe at least feels like the kind of place that should have rip off prices? Honestly it seems like all of these Phoenix resorts have more negative reviews recently, which I suspect is related to the prices being 2-3x what they used to be without anything having changed at the properties.