So if I understand the OP correctly, he purchased the least expensive package (I can understand why) that explicitly does not provide technical support, only forum support?

I was a WAN (Wide Area Network) admin for almost 10 years. In that time we upgraded several computer systems including main, office and POS for 163 remote locations. We are only talking about 163 customers, remember this. Each time we upgraded computer systems we were flooded with support calls. Specially when the upgrades were new tech. I had to set up a special help desk each time we made major upgrades, hire people to man the phones and even still the flood of calls was extremely difficult to deal with. We also provided web support in the form of a forum and an accumulation of problems with solutions that could be reviewed, etc.

I cannot even begin to imagine what Centroid must be going through. Consider this, each new sale for an Acorn controller will generate questions. Now consider that DIY CNC mills/routers are almost all different in some way from one to another. When dealing with DIY people tend to create Frankenstein CNC builds. So you are taking new tech, remember people are still having issues with getting Mach 3 to work, and how long has that been around? This is brand new tech we are talking about, so yes, of course, there are going to be little bothersome issues that come up, that might take time to get answers for on a forum where the very people providing answers via paid tech support, then try to find the time to post solutions to your problems, and you are not paying for any support at all.

You can purchase the Acorn with support, but if you do not it is made clear that you will only have forum support to resort to. I can understand why you wouldn't want to purchase any tech support with your Acorn, you can save a few hundred dollars. But I can also understand, and fully support Centroids model. You might not realize how incredibly expensive running a help desk is, but I can assure you of a few things, first it's expensive. You do not profit off of tech support and it needs to be supported through the sale of equipment, specifically Acorn equipment if it's an Acorn help desk. So if you are not paying for tech support, and believe it should be included in the sale price, you could expect a sale price more expensive than purchasing a few hours of tech support would cost you.

And lets be perfectly honest. You posted the day after you received your board and attempted to make it work. The issues you experienced, honestly, in my personal opinion were minor, extremely minor and easily overcome. It seems to me that you were probably really excited to receive the board, and to get your equipment up and running, and overly frustrated that the equipment did not work according to your expectations.

However, regardless of your not purchasing tech support, it seems you got all the answers you were looking for, but do not want to accept any blame or fault in how you went about getting the information you seemingly were overly eager to get. Now, imagine being one of those overworked, help desk techs that is reading your posts. If it were me, I would see your posts as minor in comparison to other issues and questions that need to be answered. Being that you were looking for answers but at the same time stating that there were bugs that might not be bugs, but only a lack of information, or a lack of direction by Centroids part, or it could possibly be partly your own fault for not reading or watching something that escaped your notice.

But when it comes down to it, you didn't pay for tech support and didn't receive any personal attention as a result. You were complaining on a tech support page which offers no help at all to anyone else reading those posts, so they end up just being complaints. When you run a forum, as an admin it's your job to make sure you remove fluff, advertising, posts that do not relate to the forum topics, etc. It's maintenance. It's making sure that the forum doesn't de-evolve into a complaint page for people who are frustrated, it should be focused on the forum topics alone. If you posted about how you resolved your issues, that would have value. But stating there are bugs when they might not be bugs, or might be something else not their fault, as if fact is not helpful at all. Asking a valid question, getting a valid answer that others may read and be able to resolve their own issues does have value. So yeah, your posts were deleted but for very good reason. And you were probably removed because you presented to Centroid a disruptive, unhelpful forum member that expressed what they thought were bugs that possibly were not, and complaining about things that were not valid complaints perhaps. OR were valid complaints but there were already questions and answers for those issues.

I would suggest the op become an admin on a forum, or ask the admins on this forum how they might deal with the same situation. Or you may want to imagine if you owned a business, how you would deal with a customer like yourself, but be fair and really think of the situation as if you were Centroid, and operating under the conditions I mentioned above. If you are fair in your assessment, then I feel you should come to a similar conclusion. Centroid operated as a large industrial company should in regards to a customer who explicitly did not purchase technical support. And a disruptive member of their forum who may have stated several things as fact, when they were simply issues and not bugs at all. Imagine how unfair you might feel the complaints are, and all just because the customer did not do something correctly, or didn't like watching video or whatever. Think about how you might respond and then, if you are being fair, you might begin to understand the immense challenges that come with providing technical equipment of such high quality to DIY hobbyists who are wanting to purchase top of the line equipment for as cheaply as possible. For the price they are selling the Acorn board for, you cannot provide technical support. You just simply cannot do it. Be fair and I think you might change your mind.

After all, you are the one who chose to purchase only the equipment and not tech support. The other thing is this, you might deal with tech support for a few hours and never, not ever talk with them again. The real reason for your purchase, which is evident by the fact you did not buy tech support, is that you wanted industrial grade equipment for DIY prices. And you chose the Acorn board, because it just so happens to be the best bang for the buck.

I just have to ask, what exactly were you expecting? A quick plug and play solution to your CNC mill? When retrofitting, is there ever NOT little issues and problems you must overcome at the very least? Did you honestly believe you would receive your Acorn and have your system up and running within hours? Did you really expect to get an answer on the forum faster than you did, considering it's really the freeware version of tech support and you are not paying for the cost of even that?

Nothing that has to do with DIY CNC's is simple nor easy. Be fair in your assessment.