The number of restaurants that now give a DVC discount vs...when I joined, very few did, and most were lunch only. We don't do TS every day so its nice when we decide to do it, we get a discount, no matter where we eat or when.
The merchandise discount is now 20% all the time...and occasionally 30%...the Epcot lounge... MM events, and discounts on water park tickets ongoing...was hit or miss before...when we joined. The special one year deal with Owner's Locker right now is really good and saved me a great deal for my first year.
Of course, we have also had access to special discounts on multi park tickets throughout our ownership and the ability to get the special AP...which, were not there when we joined...and yes, the suspension of AP's is in place, but that again, it is not a DVC thing...its a parks thing...
The point was that in terms of DVC, what we have is nice....and before anyone starts, there are other ways to get discounts but we have found all of them are more restrictive than DVC...like Disney Visa requires a $50 minimum to get the 10%...I get 20% off going in and buying our bottled drinks...and yes, I do that vs the carts. TIW was never worth it because we didn't spend enough to make it back...and, if AP's go away, we still get the DVC discounts on food and merchandise regardless.
Not saying any of this is major but in terms of what was offered to me as DVC in 2009 was not as good as it is now in 2023...the only missing perk I had access to for a very short time was the free valet...but renting a car isn't something we did very often so honestly, its wasn't something we would have taken advantage, if at all, had it continued.
Things like changes to FP, DME, TIW, EMH, etc. are park things and whether we were DVC or not, we would be dealing with those regardless..