Many respected organisations (like the BBC and Apple) remove
comments at the drop of a hat when criticism of products or corporate
decisions/policy is posted. In addition VSL has one of the best
support records with frequent contributions from staff (at all times
of day/night) to help out users of their products and even, in some
cases, other suppliers hardware/software!
So there have been grumbles and also praise (lots) for VSL so in my
book they are one of the good guys and long should they remain!
Thanks for this interesting reply Julian, and a happy new year to you also. Actually I think the Apple comparison is very apt. They make 'premium' products, with a premium (and how!) price tag, and yet have some of the most esoteric operating methods I've ever encountered. I can't disagree their support is second to none (both apple and vsl). It's just that time-sensitive upgrade offers, 'individual contact with customers via our sales team' and the now infamous locking users out of an upgrade path are pretty 3-star policies, and don't reflect well on what is a 5-star product.
As to the comment about the BBC, I suppose your objection is to an overly dominant player in the marketplace behaving in a way you deem innapropriate at times. I guess my post above demonstrates that this kind of behaviour isn't limited to purely public sector organisations, and at least with the BBC you can write to ofcom if you have a problem. No such joy with sample library manufacturers.
I'd be more than happy for other more informed users to point me in the direction of a strategy here, some users of this forum seem to be incredibly well informed as to the various upgrade paths, so if I can piggy back on all your hard work it would be much appreciated. At the moment I have GS3, with no way of getting hold of the discontinued GS4. Therefore, I have to keep one machine running GS3, with no product support and no way of re-authorising if anything goes amiss. There's no way I'm spending 4k on stuff I've already got, and can use, so my current strategy is 'live with it and pray it doesn't go wrong'. If I'm labouring under a misapprehension and I've got more options than this, then I'd be delighted to receive advice/guidance from the community.
Oh, btw, I'm not intentionall posting anonymously, I was sure I had a proper user account, it's just been a while since I posted in the forum.
Thanks for the replies again,
Mike