It's a bit hard to keep a discussion going when every thread gets locked for no apparent reason. However, forester posted this about me:

"And then, a new or very young person like Phantast comes along, misunderstands the Vue community and Forum for a real marketplace, wants to know why are her 'consumer rights' are or could be being violated, and ends up disparaging the motives and abilities of people trying to sustain the community. It is quite logical and understandable, even if it is just a tad dense. I bear her no grudge either."

And I need to reply, since this misrepresents what I said. I said nothing about consumer rights, I disparaged no-one's motives or abilities, and what is stated above is quite untrue. All I said, and I tried to make this very clear, is that as a consumer, I make choices about where I spend my money.

Now, many companies spend large amounts of money trying to find out what influences the behaviour of consumers who might buy their products. It's called "market research". Here am I providing some market research info for free. That ought to be welcomed.

I'm explaining my behaviour as a consumer. I'm telling people why I buy in one place and not another. It's not complaining. It's not up to me how C3D is run. I'm merely describing what I do and why I do it. And that's all I ever said in the threads now locked.

I think that forums are very poor places to try and interact on any subject that treads on "personal issues."  Forum interaction does not provide for the immediate feedback that human interaction provides.  When writing snippets of thoughts in a forum, it is too easy to take a perfectly innocent sentence and interpret it as “my personal issue.”  It would seem that many folks take ideas right out of the dryer and put them on without using the closet – so to speak.

I often think in terms of principles when writing, I rarely have anyone in mind.  I guess some folks simply assume that a discussion concerning…issues, necessarily involves more than their ideas – it must involve "them."

I understood the basis of your arguements, and thought your comments were quite civil. it would seem that a few others did not (I will say that some other comments concerning Forester's model quality/prices were off subject, and did invite a "take it personal" response). 

C3D does -- usually, give potential customers a choice with regards to purchasing protected or unprotected models. So in that case the only real issue is the cost of models.  In all honesty, I was ignorant of the fact that the C3D protected or unprotected status was the model owners choice.  That did change the tone of my point-of-view when I found out that was the case.