If you want to see how professional companies support their products, just take a look at...
On the subject of annoyances, I'll take a swing at the use of the word "professional" to connote things above and beyond something being "of, relating to, or connected with a profession": pressed shirts with neckties, a firm handshake, standing around a conference table with coffee in hand working on a "vision statement", a pod of smiling, multiracial people pointing at a computer screen - making sure their website has a sufficient quantity of
headset hotties...
Like it or not, Apple is a business - a successful one - and the people who comprise it are paid. While they may love what they do, they are certainly not doing it as a hobby. That is: they are a professional company. That word does not mean what you think it means, Vizzini.
The long-term support that you're describing is essential when selling to large businesses and bureaucracies. Microsoft and IBM, having deliberately chosen to play in that market, need to do it. I would wager that this sort of support headache is exactly what has been the disincentive for Apple to play in that sphere.
When I bought my Mac, I had already accepted that I'd still have to pay to keep current on system software, and that Apple would go out of their way to make sure that choosing not to would be an unpleasant alternative. Still I bought it and it has been well worth it. I can't help but think that anyone who would buy a Mac without having already internalized that part of the equation must have rode the short bus to school.
The fact that I bought a "very expensive car" does not release me from purchasing motor oil, and while you may (and probably will) quibble about that car analogy it is not at all unreasonable for Apple to refuse cater to customers who have made themselves
de facto non-customers by not upgrading the operating system.
