In reply to Zachary Skaggs.

@Zachary Skaggs, I see your problem. But you have to understand that the forum is not just a way for the plugin developer to answer support questions, it's also a place for other developers, implementers, and users to support other users. None of that, including the sort of knowledgebase it creates, it's given by a form-based 1-to-1 support. Not that this isn't great, of course, but it's not the same thing.

I do, however, agree with you as to the preference given to some plugins. It's starting to feel really odd having always the same featured plugins…

As to the support forum for each plugin, one thing that really bothers me is the search being so bad. That should, as I see it, be the number one priority regarding features for the plugin repository, and wp.org in general.