Bravo. This needs posted over there.
What, you want me to get banned too?
That message reminds me of two situations in the past:
First, when someone kvetched in a letter to Dragon back in the day about the lack of Greyhawk products. I believe it was during the Roger Moore era, and he babbled back that they had plenty of Greyhawk products - 3 just the last year! During which of course there was a generic product every month, an FR product 2 every 3 months, and a SJ or DS product every other month. But it wasn't the lack of Greyhawk products that caused them to have low sales, it was the low sales that caused them not to do Greyhawk products.
And then Greyhawk was off the setting list after another six months.
Second, a few years after that, someone wrote in asking about issues shipping late. Everything is fine! We have no problems! The printer is working with us! The next issue will be on time! So will the Annual!
And two months later no magazines shipped and they were negotiating being sold to WotC instead of WotC negotiating selling out to TSR.
As a bonus, there was Winter Fantasy 2007.
Where they promised a "big announcement", "exclusive", during the RPGA Members meeting. And then . . . nothing. But they did assure us they had 3.5 products on the calendar "through the end of the year." Those exact words. So I nodded sagely, read between the lines, read the product list (MIC, SC, and RC), and was called an idiot who was imagining things because there was no way they would end 3.5 even though it was 5 years since they had started it, so shut up you!
And then of course there was the banner at Gen Con that year.
Now mind you, they never lied; they just used very precise language and left it to the fanboys to believe 3.5 would last forever and shout down anyone who said otherwise and might cause sales to drop prematurely.
And then people wonder why I'm so cynical.
And corporate hacks wonder why I see through them so easily.
Also, for your timeline, though it wasn't fully WotC, you overlooked the TSR AOL Folders, followed by the various message boards and mailing lists, and the TSR chat rooms that WotC managed to consign to oblivion in the process of getting their first corporate boards set up. They did bring most of the TSROs over, but they lost a lot of archived material, and really messed up the community losing the chat rooms.