Thanks for summing up the acquisition sentiment so well, Jeff. I'm in charge of the ManageWP comments, and I was asked a couple of times today why I haven't closed the comment section (AWP thread was locked after things got out of hand). The reason is simple:

Unlike the AWP group where unaffiliated people took pot shots at GoDaddy, every single commenter on the ManageWP blog is our user. And each and every one of them deserves to be heard, because their businesses are on the line. And in a way I was proud to see so many people caring about what's gonna happen to ManageWP and how it's going to affect them.

We talked about making things better for the whole community. This resounding feedback from our community was clear: our users expect nothing less than what they're getting now, and they won't settle for less.

When you have that kind of clear cut expectations, it helps everyone on the team stay focused on the goal: building great things that the WordPress community needs. So thank you WordPress community for being so passionate :)

P.S. It's fun to write on someone else's blog for a change :D