I feel like there should be an annual pass option one step down from the Disney Platinum Pass that doesn't include the Photopass or parking or dining discounts. Assuming your family is vacationing together, once you have one Disney Platinum Pass in the family, you don't need those services on the passes for the other members of the family so I feel like the value becomes less for each additional member of the family that has the annual pass. Anyone else have thoughts this? Am I just missing the point?
I think those things are included as a way for Disney to "justify" the high cost. Giving you parking or PhotoPass costs them next to nothing, yet it adds a lot of value for people who want those things. If things like that are removed, it might become difficult for people to justify buying the AP instead of multi-day tickets, which makes it harder to get them into the parks in the first place (more of a planned trip than a spontaneous visit) DLR has a complicated series of tiered APs that have varying numbers of blackout days and many without parking (at one point parking could be added on, but I'm not sure if that's still the case). By unbundling those things, they created a strange scenario where the parks are busiest during traditionally off-season periods, but quite manageable during peak tourist seasons when APs are blocked from entering. This has made trip planning fairly unpredictable, and taxed the resort infrastructure beyond its limit I agree that it would be nice if WDW had another option beyond what they have now (which is essentially all-or-nothing), but I also see problems with having too many choices
