I love the boardwalk view, you can do some serious people watching, watch some of illuminations, see all the entertainment, all without getting up your chair in the balcony. It is a little noisy though, specially in the lower floors, but we don't mind.
We stayed once at the beach club, and we liked the pool very much and I think there is no comparison in that area, but since most of the time we go in January, we don't take advantage of the pools so much, so the clown pool suits us fine. My hubbie also plays tennis when we are on vacation and the BW has that too. So in my opinion, you should try the boardwalk view at least once and see for yourself if it is something worth the extra points for you. For us it definitely is.