[northband]

I agree.

In our case it would be nice to have an account manager. As far as phone support I think the idea itself is comforting, however, it doesn't mean a solution is going to be fixed any quicker.

Regardless of the means - whatever you use has to work. I can't recall what it was but I had some sort of situation where you had to call and leave a message for support (ISP maybe?). The idea seemed ridiculous, but I was assured that it would work. Low and behold, it did - this business promptly returned calls and sorted out support issues. SO despite the weirdness of it, it did in fact work.