The following thread was started yesterday with essentially the same discussion based on an article in the WSJ:

http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/showthread.php?t=804915

I am happy to see that they are planning to do improvements but the WSJ article mentions that getting the hotel owners to spend the money in todays economy will be difficult. Evidently *W is having problems with good Sheraton hotel owners wanting to "upgrade" to Westin flags and also having issues getting new built hotels to fly the Sheraton flag.