Because managers need a line item in the budget to do anything, and it's a lot easier organizationally to pay a yearly subscription (no matter how expensive) th

Because managers need a line item in the budget to do anything, and it's a lot easier organizationally to pay a yearly subscription (no matter how expensive) than it is to make it an employee's job. The support basically amounts to access to their RPM repository. You'd have to pay a lot of money to get access to Alan Cox -- normal tickets just get you access to people who've been through the same training that your manager paid you to go to.