I prefer to stay in non-chain hotels and B&Bs when traveling in Europe.

Unless you're disabled (in which case check as a lot of these are in less than accessible buildings), you will almost always get a better experience...not to mention included breakfast, often big enough you don't need to spend much on lunch.

As for the luxury hotel with no hot water...the most charitable response I have is "Maybe they thought they fixed it."

(My last hotel stay I had to move rooms because the HVAC unit in the room got stuck on AC. As in it wouldn't even stay off. It was 40 degrees outside...having to move rooms sucked, but they did at least resolve it and they TRIED to fix the unit, but it was a software issue...I'm betting that room was out of action for days. I'm also betting it had been like that for months and nobody had noticed because summer).