I became gold member in august 2009 and had my first stay since then in january 2010. Here are the "results" of my 10 stays this year:
Sheraton Roma Hotel & Conference Center
3 nights in january
booked a superior room, one night with the xmas promotion rate and 2 nights with a travelzoo promotion rate
received a superior room on SPG floor (4th floor), asked for late check out, which was confirmed
Sheraton Offenbach Hotel
1 night in march
booked a classic room with a breakfast package rate
received a classic room at SPG floor (4th floor)
Sheraton Congress Hotel Frankfurt
1 night in march
booked a classic room with a prepaid rate
received a room on executive floor (11th floor), there's no lounge in this hotel so it's next to useless
Sheraton Hannover
1 night in april
booked a classic room with a prepaid rate
received a club room on 2nd floor, asked for late check out, which was confirmed
Plaza Athénée Bangkok, A Royal Méridien Hotel
1 night in april
booked a deluxe room with the Discover Royal Club promotion rate
received a deluxe room on 22nd floor and was asked if I need late check out
The Westin Grande Sukhumvit
1 night in april
booked a deluxe room with a prepaid rate (error rate as well)
received a nice corner deluxe room, albeit on 15th floor, which was quite noisy
Plaza Athénée Bangkok, A Royal Méridien Hotel
1 night in april
booked a deluxe room with the Discover Royal Club promotion rate
received a deluxe room on 23rd floor and was asked if I need late check out
The Westin Grande Sukhumvit
1 night in april
booked a deluxe room with a prepaid rate (error rate as well)
received a deluxe room next to the elevator on 20th floor
Le Meridien Bangkok
2 nights in april
booked a suite with the Suite Revelation promotion rate
received a suite on 20th floor and got internet for free (which is a suite benefit anyway)
Sheraton Grande Sukhumvit
1 night in april
booked a standard reward night
received a deluxe room on 27th floor, shoe shine service, 3 pieces free laundry/pressing and butler service (the grand deluxe benefits but without free breakfast

)
Well I knew that I should not expect anything as a gold member but 1 out of 10 is a pretty bad ratio for a nice benefit (the corner room at Westin in Bangkok). Anyway I'm not too much disappointed but it doensn't make sense for me to keep up my gold member tier for the future. I will be gold until february 2012 now, but I don't think that I'll try anything to requalify. If I find a nice rate at a *wood hotel, I'll book it for sure, but I won't ignore other chains and hotels anymore. Maybe I was just at the wrong hotels, maybe it as just the wrong time, but the benefits I received were just not enough.
Late check-out is a nice benefit, but I need it by far not often enough and I don't consider the "upgrade" to the SPG floor as an real upgrade (I usually was upgraded to SPG floor in at least 80% of my stays while I was just preferred guest). As a gold member Hilton offer the much better benefits for me, I really like the upgrade/breakfast option, especially in combination with the spouse stay free option (yeah I know, it's not a gold member benefit), unfortunately I will never have enough stays in one year to keep my Hilton gold member tier as well.
The only thing that really pisses me off is that when I asked for a status match least year, I got a reply from german customer service that they can't do it because the benefits I receive as a SPG gold member are so valuable. From my point of view today I can only realize that my definition of "valuable" is pretty much different.
P.S. the best benefit I received was definately not a planned benefit from the hotel. For my stay at Le Meridien in Bangkok and I had 2 reservation for each one night. After a couple of changes in the date and the rate I had two nights in running with a promotion rate for a suite. I was pretty lucky but I was "awarded" with 2 stays and 2.000 bonus points from the FT promotion for this stay