Sheer necessity or exhaustion.

That said, I will also disagree with the OP's post, in that I also have had very little problem redeeming points for stays. The notable exception was for several Scandic stays I was looking at (during my $20 BA WT+ trip in early 2003), but my locations and times were not flexible enough to get exactly what I wanted. All of those stays were otherwise booked into other locations that had award availability.

I estimate that, in the 10 or so times I've redeemed a stay award, I've been able to get my first choice of hotel, on the dates I wanted, 7 times. On the occasion of the other times, I got my second choice with no problem.

Mike