I've been following this with interest. I wonder why we think we have a right to 'customer service' from an organisation whose facilities we use free. On the other hand, if they provide them, they must do so for some reason, whatever that may be, and it must be in their interest to make sure that they do not piss customers off.
I have Hotmail and Gmail accounts, but I do not expect much of them and I do not regard them as 'forever' or reliable, so I only use them for unimportant stuff. My main email accounts are ones I pay for, and there I feel I have a right to demand a level of service, and in fact when things have gone wrong, I've found the level of customer service to be outstanding, from their Indian call centres.