Not to take any side on the way other countries have to deal with it, but speaking from my experience as the Primary contact for my Department (in the US), the way annual maintenance is paid determines who and the number of users that can (are "allowed") to contact technical support directly.
When our staff contacts me about an issue, it may be that I have already reported it and/or received a workaround, and it may be that I already know if it will/or will not be fixed in a future release. If it goes beyond anything that I know about or can research thru GeoNet, Stackexchange, etc., I then have to generate the support ticket, but at least in my case, after initial contact I can usually have the support staff talk directly to the user (keeping me in the loop). With my users spread out across the state, it in not always possible for me to go to their machine to work out the details of the particular issue.
So, I agree with Dan that posting questions here is a good way to go if you don't think you are getting complete answer thru the channels available to you. You may get the exact same answer, but if you need that as assurance, it is a free, mainly community run forum. If it is a bug that hasn't been reported, it may be that someone else will encounter the problem and seeing you post may push the reporting along a bit faster (especially if they can contact tech support)
Also, it's good to check out the Esri Arcgis Ideas | Ideas Submission Portal page to see if someone has already submitted the "fix" as an idea.....they you can promote it. Also, alwasy check Patches and Service Pack - Esri Support to see if a fix has already been issued.
Keep in mind, not all bugs can or will be fixed....sometimes workarounds are what we have to work with. As a long time esri user, my main concern is to get things to work .....even if it takes a bit of tweaking. And just to add a bit more commentary.....I have to use far less workarounds than 30, or even 10 years ago.....so things are improving overall.....we just all expect more all the time. So, it may not be a perfect GIS world, but as long as we have resources like these forums, and can get things done.....