[Disclaimer: I've less time to make a properly-concise or better-structured post; pls pardon my wonderings below.]
Extremely helpful discussion, thanks all. I wish I'd done my homework and reviewed this prior to experiencing (and rant-writing)
about these things.
In general: I care far more about quality of support and less about response time, particularly for the tougher issues. I'm willing to wait if I can get a good person (preferably) to assist, or at least good info. So far I'm getting none of either.
Further, I'm quite familiar with multiple levels of (tech) support, large-company org charts and bureaucracy, etc. My crew and I have worked with the largest organizations in the world. (I'll refrain from comments about efficiencies for larger orgs.)