Thanks Web-weaver, I appreciate your point, although I can't say I agree with it. I am fully aware of the new model so many companies are moving towards and frankly, it is annoying and ineffective much of the time. If people don't have the incentive to learn a product well enugh to support it, they should not be in software support. But then unfortunately the level of expertise available comes down to whether companies hire people with the necessary skills or whetehr they juts look at cutting costs. Having lead teams that know software inside out and provided effective international support of visual imaging software way more complex than Lightroom, I do know it's possible and I don't think it is acceptable that customers should be foreced to use forums; they are a great addition to our knowledge and great for information exchange when you're not in a hurry, but too slow when you're operating against the clock.
As it happens, once Adobe started communicating (via Facebook) it was clearly a simple question they were able to answer. If they'd picked up the phone I'd have had my answer in minutes, but instead it took half the day. Do you really feel that's OK when you've invested £££ thousands? I don't.