> IME it's impossible to reach a person unless you're a multi-million-dollar org

I am sorry to hear that, but I can assure you it's not the case. I'm an engineer on a newer (and therefore smaller) AWS service, and I help investigate customer complaints, from customers of all sizes, all the time. I'll also note that not only do we handle cases that come in via our paid support, we also do deep dives for customers who post to our service's forums and indicate issues.