For the group of 9 we were in Rome the fact everything was in self-service facilitated things a lot. I cannot imagine each and every of us waiting somewhere at a reception to get a key every time. The apartment was clean, everything worked and the Vatican was literally across the street. There's also a modest looking but quite good coffee bar next door which was a perfect breakfast solution for us.
The only inconvenience were some parts of the online apartment info panel which were only in Italian. We had two Italian speakers in the group so we managed but I can imagine it being a bit problematic without them.