This problem was not the natural result of "exiting". There is no reason FW couldn't supply a recovery method. That's not "hey that's life on the bleeding edge!" For that matter, the whole product isn't bleeding edge since years ago anyway.

Someone else noticed that there is actually a (unpopulated) header for flashing, which avoids the janky pogo pin thing even unpopulated. Why didn't fw point him at it when explicitly asked? And even if they had, where is the firmware image to use with it? They have it, so there is nothing about the "exiting" nature of the product that stops them from saying something more helpful than "throw the motherboard away".