Excellent points; Palace also has a BART station at its doorstep (now that BART finally goes to SFO that is a bit more significant). The Palace was built after the Gold Rush to be the finest hotel in the world, sparing no expense (and when built it was the most expensive building per square foot in the world, with mind-boggling lavish features, such as a Tiffany glass ceiling for the carriage entrance (at the time the most expensive piece of Tiffany glass); this is now enclosed as a restaurant in the hotel. Like all old hotels, the rooms are highly hierarchic, and about 10% of the rooms are fabulous; the rest are not. So, if you have status or pay for it, the hotel can get you one of those 10% rooms, and they will be nicer than more modern alternatives. The problem is the big drop to the remaining 90% of the rooms. I've had one crummy room and a dozen great rooms/suites at the Palace. They do track past stay history, fwiw.