Frustration in cyberland....

So, as I reported to my classmates two weeks ago, my venture into cyberland ahs been frustrating at best. Specifically, my attempt to engage in Second Life. I have now spent countless hours trying to simply access the system. The application crashes without even displaying the title page of the application. Now mind you, I have spent nearly twenty years in a technical field, so technical troubleshooting is not a foreign concept to me provided that I have access to anythng like decent information to troubleshoot with! After nearly eight hours over several days of searching through the knowledgebase and FAQ data base, I was almost satisfied with the notion that my problems stemmed from an unsupported video card. That's cool, I'm not keen on the idea of buying a new video card, but I selected my laptop as a business app, not a gaming unit.

So this weekend, I finally had access to the "family PC" for more than 15 minutes. I have now wasted another two hours trying to set up on my desktop, which does have a graphics card that is apparently supported. This time I receive a DNS connection error, Grand! After following the suggested points to ensure that I have a good internet connection and thatthe secondlife site is in fact operational, I'm told to submit a suport ticket. Great......

I do this only to receive a message back a few minutes later, that my support question will not be reviewed because I am not a paying subscriber and I actually iput what the problem really was rather than entering a "special question."

So, am I simply so out of touch with reality that
a) I can no longer understand the most basic application troubleshooting tips?
b) my expectations around customer support are wildly outdated by hoping to actually communicate live with somebody to resolve an issue? PS Chat rooms are more than acceptable for this.
c) my experiences in hoping to entice a casual user into becoming a paying subscriber by ensuring a positive inagural experience are now out of vogue?

I really want to engage in this experience for my final project. I'm just stubborn enough and the preverbial "they" have ticked me off just enough, that I will get Second Life working if it kills me! I just hope that there is something redeeming in the experience once I get there.