I was referring to your alleged one month delay in the response to your e-mail.
When I had my Rage Fury, I gave them an e-mail describing a wierd texture artifacting problem I had (I was getting holes in textures, and could actually see through them). I had stated the problem went away when I borrowed an Xpert 2000.
The reply came about a week later at the most, saying that I probably had a defective product, and he gave me a list of all the information I needed for the RMA. I put down a security deposit to get it ASAP, and 3 days later, I had my replacement card. Total time without my video card = 10 days.
THAT was what I meant by unlucky, because I e-mail them whenever I notice a graphical error or anything else unusual, and I have never had to wait more than one week for my reply. Christ, I even asked them (in addition to Intel, AMD, nVidia, 3dfx, and Matrox) about the likelyhood of a 2560-bit chip (yes, 2560) in the Sony Playstation 2, because that's what some forum jerk was insisting it was (turned out to be bandwidth pipeline for an ondie chip, can't remember exactly). I had gotten two replies, a simple "No it's not possible" from nVidia, and a question from an ATI tech support person that asked me to make sure, and to tell him where I saw the information. I showed him, and he explained it to me. Once again, the e-mail was under a week. nVidia's was in 3 days, ATI's in 4. Big whup!
In addition, ATI Tech support people actually go out on to message boards to help with some known issues. They've NEVER done that before. One of them is a regular poster at Rage3D.com, and helps people out if possible, and stated that he (among others) goes to the message boards to find out problems. The public will put stress on the card that the tech support guys wouldn't have thought of, and the people I've spoken to have helped.
And as to your 'discussion' with a tech support guy, that said they will only fix it if enough people complain about it, you are likely misconstruing what he said, or he was a lackey that wasn't truly in the know, and didn't say what he meant in the right way.
I'm sure you've heard of the decision making methodology of minimum work-maximum payoff, maximum work-maximum payoff, minimum work-minimum payoff, maximum work-minimum payoff. It's a very simple, yet very practical methodology. ATI isn't going to wait for a lot of people to complain, if they know a fault is going to affect a large amount of people (which is how you interpreted it, as in they won't do anything until people complain). First off, the minimum work-maximum payoff stuff gets done first. It's quick to do, and helps the most number of people. Depending on the company the maximum work/payoff and minimum work/payoff will be second or tied. They'll likely split their resources, with most working on the maximum work/payoff, and a few working on the minimum work/payoff. In any case, these problems are generally still in the best interest of the company to fix, particularly the maximum payoff situation because it will affect the most people. Lastly is the maximum work-minimum payoff scenario. These problems are last on the priority list, and often are not addressed (not just from ATI, but from any company). In this case, either because the problem only affects a select few, or the majority of the people that have the problem either don't care, or it doesn't affect them at all.
I would say that THAT was what the tech meant when he said what he did. This would put the maximum payoff ones first, and the minimum payoff ones second. ATI will know which ones are the maximum payoff, based on what their consumers bring up (i.e. the "we'll fix them if there is enough concern" bit).
If he was a new guy that was either put on the spot, or simply just made a gaffe while speaking to you, I can assure you that ATI will not ignore large problems if no one complains. If installing an ATI card nuked some guys computer (and them somehow spread to the telephone lines) so that the guy couldn't contact ATI, do you think ATI would just ignore it?
Also, keep in mind that ATI is currently in the process of restructuring their driver department, and are planning on making a unified driver set. Do you think the driver developers at ATI enjoy hearing all the bad [-peep-] people say about them? The Radeon is a huge step up from their previous cards, and while yes the drivers are lackluster in the Windows 2000 department (although your case is the worst I've ever seen), which area do you think would be in ATI's best interest to FOCUS their driver problems right now, Windows 98/ME or Windows 2000? Things ARE still shaky, but at least they're on the right track.
But from my experiences, and from what I've seen on forums and have sold through work, the level of problems that you are having are not the norm. Most problems I've seen people have are AGP issues with Via chipsets, which I would fault Via for more than ATI, but in your case, you definitely do seem to be an unlucky guy that the gods are against.
None of the reviewers have encountered the mass number of problems that you have. Yes, in Win2K, reviewers do sometimes get hitches, but the main thing commented regarding Win2K is that the drivers still aren't performing up to snuff (which I think we all can agree on). Yes they definitely need to do work on them, but it is of a lower priority than making sure Win98/ME problems are solved. Does that mean there currently isn't anyone working on Win2K drivers? Unlikely.
And yes, this site is a lot slower than the old Delphi forum.
Anyways, the tone of my message is rather heated, but I mean no offense. To say the Rage128 Pro/Rage 128 is a crap chip, you'll get no argument from me (although I'm one of the few that didn't think it was THAT bad). Say the Rage Pro is a crap chip, and I'll bring up reasons you missed as to why it's so bad. But to say that the Radeon is 'crap,' then I would have to disagree, especially considering how ATI's cards have pretty much never even come close to 3dfx's or nVidia's performance, and now they actually usurped the high resolution speed department for a second.
I only see this as progress...
IMHO