I stayed in one of the cottages January 2020, it's rough, especially if your MB decides it doesn't want to open the door to the short cut stairwell (if climbing 4 flights of stairs is a short cut....to then find out your MB doesn't work....). It was never fun, not convenient in the slightest bit, they are completely outside, and if you can't take the stairs you have to catch the elevator up and walk all the way down the long hall to the lounge. Always took me a good 10 minutes to get there with waiting for the elevator.
I was talking with a resort manager when staying at BWV a few weeks ago, and mentioned I stayed at the cottages when she asked if I had stayed at the resort before. She kind of made a sad noise and said "sadly those aren't club level anymore", I said "I wonder why...." and she gave this weird look, then her phone rang (we were waiting on housekeeping to call her back about issues with my room). I'm guess just cost cutting, especially since they're doing daily housekeeping with CL rooms, and those rooms are so much to clean. So maybe one day they'll be CL again, but at this moment they aren't.