That's actually the interesting thing about Council, is getting to have a say on the balance of where the Uni money goes. Unfortunately though there is only so much you can say in 150 words, but I definitely agree with the points you raise.
I agree with you about the Old Main building, really I do - I had a class in there in first year and at the end of the semester I still had no idea where to find things. The med buildings, similarly are old and outdated, and desperately need new lab and classroom space.
One of the problems that I do see though is that UNSW is so concerned about the architecture and spunky new look of its buildings - while spending millions and millions at UNSW to make it look "modern" and so they can get their name in this year's architectual awards book (not to mention designing the new UNSW Asia campus), the Uni is at the same time forcing faculties to scale down on staff, in particular cutting back on full timers for casuals, who are usually less experienced.
The big problem is that teaching rankings among the lowest in australia mean that your UNSW degree is worth less than your Melbourne/ANU/Sydney counterpart. Which means that students end up with lower starting salaries and have more trouble finding work.
UNSW also struggles with its student experience - the fact that clubs or student organisations don't appeal to you enough to get you involved is a part of this.
All of this ties in together to add to our Uni's reputation, and like it or not, the experience of students trying to come to UNSW (and struggling to find housing or childcare) and students who aren't interested in clubs but study and do nothing else on campus (with fewer and less experienced teachers) means that ultimately we all suffer. Clubs create Uni life, childcare helps us attract high quality research students, and housing means that students have an easier time coming here - all of which will impact on UNSW's graduate standing and your future job. Even though you might not directly use these things, they ultimately do impact upon you.
That being said, one of the big things that the Uni is doing over the next few years is upgrading the library (once the Law faculty moves into its big fancy expensive new building) - I have already been to a few of these meetings as Source President, and have been pushing for things like more computers, more group study space (and in particular group study space with computers) and generally a more study friendly space. There are many people in the Uni who think "why do we need more computers, in five years all students will have laptops", which I'm sure is exactly what people said five or ten years ago as well. This is why we need students on these bodies who know what they are doing and can stick up for students' interests.
OK so that ended up being a much more long winded answer to your question than I thought... hope it did explain it a bit. Don't worry though - I have been on campus long enough to know that buying off vested interests is not the way to involve students or make Uni better.