As a platinum guest fast approaching 50 cruises with
DCL, I don't want perks I can buy. Yes, it can save me some money when the perk they offer aligns with my plans but I'd just as soon pay for these things and have the perks be something I couldn't get/do otherwise.
For example, we like Palo but we don't love Palo so we don't make it a point to go every cruise. So I'd say we only take advantage of the Palo perk 1/3 of the time. (And with the reports of how difficult it is becoming to get brunch reservations, I can see them enforcing the free Palo on dinner only, which would bring us down to using it maybe once every 9-10 sailings.) If they were to
replace the Palo perk with something we couldn't buy, say Platinum Palo tea, that would be great. We'd still do Palo brunch/dinner just as frequently but we'd feel we had some value in being loyal to DCL. The "free" stateroom gift is also a pass for us. We don't drink wine (and if we did, we would probably be more than happy to bring a few of our favorites on board with us), fruit is everywhere to be found so I don't need a fruit bowl in the room and the chocolate is horrible (plus they give you better chocolate at turn down every night - well except Pirate Night chocolate!). Plus we have to endure explaining to Room Service usually at least 3 times during the cruise that we do not want them to send any of the above to our stateroom and that we do understand that they are free and that it is a bigger burden to receive them then to skip them.
I've said it before and I'll keep saying it, the biggest loss of perks we've had was when they eliminated the Platinum experiences. Yes, they were getting repetitive and they needed to freshen up their offerings. (They did do that occasionally; the best was when they gave an extended behind the scenes galley tour.) And now it seems they combined the reception with the old platinum theater experience on the 8+ nights. They call it a reception and we had no idea what to expect when we were invited to a special viewing of newly updated Twiced Charmed several years ago on the TransAtlantic. But in my opinion, it is neither a good reception (you aren't really interacting with anyone from your theater seat), nor is it a good "experience".
I know the receptions were getting difficult when they had hundreds of people at them. And when they had to spread them out through 3 different bar locations didn't really help in mixing and mingling. But initially (the early years) the receptions were a lot of fun. They had appetizers (hot and cold) and the officers mixed through the room and guest mixed because the group was not so large. Ahh, the good ol' days. Who knew!