Well, with inflation your dollar (or whatever currency you use) buys less each year. Inflation happens. Demand causes it to happen. If the demand were not there then it would not happen. If you choose to give up Starwood, go for it. More rooms for the rest of us.

You put up a list of hotels that increased their category number. How about another list of hotels that decreased their category number. Or a list of those that stayed the same. If you increase the number of points for a category then ALL hotels in that category require more points. That is no good. More people would complain about that than a few hotels changing categories.