Lisa, in my opinion their forcing you to use their ticket system was a deliberate and intentional act done so they could then justify charging you more down the line later because of their increased support costs.

Because how can it make any sense that someone who looks at their support costs 2 years ago and sees them increasing then decides to take down a support forum that resulted in many of their customers helping each other at no cost to them, and then replacing it with a more costly one-on-one paid support ticket system?

You are concerned about your support costs increasing, and your response is to then immediately increase your support costs by making people helping each other for free no longer an option for your users.

As you have mentioned here that was very popular with users. But Woo took it down and without even consulting with their users. And when their users complained they never listened and refused to reinstate it.

What does that tell you? It tells you that they have some other agenda that is not being driven by their customers needs, but by their own profit making plans.