I am incredibly unsympathetic to statements like the first reply to the issue "This sounds like a hardware issue. Please can you contact the reseller for a refund." from the "Software Engineering Manager at Raspberry Pi, working on firmware, bootloader, security and low-level Linux software." (Read: I suspect this person knew exactly what happened here)

If the reply was along the lines of "This is a new firmware check to curb fraud related to undisclosed aftermarket RAM upgrades with potentially unreliable chips." - I'd be fine with it, but basically just coming out to gaslight the user about the issue leaves a very sour taste in my mouth. In the end, they had to come clean anyway, big surprise.

I say this as someone who has been loving Pis despite their price for the straightforward and reliable long-term software support. Not gonna pretent like I'll never buy a Pi again, but it's another strike moving me to explore other options in the future.

Really? I found that issue and all of the related ones really disingenuous from the Pi folks; they just stonewalled everyone with "contact your hardware seller" rather than explaining what was going on even at the glossed-over level they managed in the forum thread.

I do feel for them; they're between a rock and a hard place with mis-labeled clone boards. But their implementation seems to be the most hostile and opaque possible way to achieve these goals (which I also understand from an anti-cloning standpoint, but especially anymore, it's going to get reversed anyway).