Regarding heated towel rails (, lack of heat therein):
Yes, this has annoyed me on many trips! It's especially common in UK hotels to have a rail that is clearly FITTED with heating but there's no way to turn it on (is it a timer? Have they disabled them for "green" reasons? Do they all break down 3 weeks after installation??)
[Tyrolean hotels only turn on their drying rooms in the ski season
]
Still, you can sympathise - most guests don't wash their clothes in their room, and encouraging it would lead to damp patches and ensuing problems, I guess.
meanwhile, in Germany last year, my well-bred travel guide/wheelman convinced me that good air-con is actually better at drying shorts overnight than hanging them somewhere warm. So there's a silver lining here somewhere.
(every trip I've made to Europe has seen me hang shorts on the balcony* rail outside, resulting in a 3am thunderstorm
)
*this is usually the communal walkway rail, but anyway ...