Gassamo, if you get your hotel booked you can asked them to fax you kinda of acknowledgement letter that you are booked and paid in their hotel.

Yes they still require the hotel booking, thats why when we went to Lapland the tour operator had to send the acknowledgement letter via fax to us to submit to the embassy.

I remember that time I went to German embassy like 6 or 7 time all together. It is a pain ... hassle ... but by now i am used to it lol. They want the address, email and phone number of the hotel we are staying stated in the visa form clearly.