wow, I see a lot of other opportunities to do better at what they already do that would also “fill in the market gap between them and zendesk” — things like real reporting, extensibility and configurability in the sidebar, and automations being things that this actual ($1500/mo) paying customer would value, whereas phone support is not something I care about at all.

I suspect you’re right but it makes me sad (because of course everything is a trade-off, can’t have it all…)