Nadrek (1/28/2014)
Microsoft is encouraging us to pay continuous per-year fees (like the EA agreements for SA licensing), taking that money, and then failing to provide us with properly tested updates (i.e. service packs)? I find this offensive - we're paying every year, and yet getting less service than when we paid a one-off fee.
You also have to consider that more versions of SQL Server are currently in support simultaneously than at any other time in history, and that is about to get increased by one before dropping by two in June. Yet the size of the SQL Server team remains the same, the complexity of the product has increased, and time is being spent on cumulative updates which you may not want but I can assure you others do. There has to be some give somewhere (oh, and you don't have to buy SA if you don't want it).
As Steve suggested elsewhere in this thread, you need to comment and vote on those Connect items so your voice is heard. Complaining here that "I spend $x and want more service packs for it!" is just lost noise, and that isn't a realistic expectation anyway unless it has numbers behind it (e.g. lots of other people have the same priorities as you).