Just got my Starwood e-statement mentioning cash and points and I decided to try things out. Category 5 & 6 hotels were showing up on the site as available. For example, in Rome, the Eden, the St Regis and the Excelsior were bookable for a random date I tried (but lower category hotels were not available for C&P although they were available for points). And many hotels (at least in Europe) that previously were not in the system are showing up as bookable with cash and points (like the Frankfurt Airport Sheraton which I have been wanting to book for a while and much prefer cash and points to all points).

So it seems like things are finally up and running and with the new site showing everything at a glance, I would say this is definitely a big improvement worth recognizing.