They need to help not just because of our subscription and the expectation that brings, but because support is needed in order to step in when an honest mistake leads to something that impacts us this badly. It comes with the MMO territory. If the GMs don't have the tools to fix it, that sucks -- so, escalate it.

I do CS for another MMO. We used to be able to step in to correct guild leadership issues in certain cases, until we started getting backlash. We made the decision to stop intervening in guild affairs, but ONLY AFTER putting in a tool letting sufficiently-ranked members replace an inactive leader, and ensuring that the guild interface in-game had checks and balances, such as warning prompts and the need for players to be online for certain promotions.

Square-Enix has yet to add anything like that. While we are asking them to take a risk, or make an exception, to get involved here, they need to acknowledge the problem and do absolutely everything they can to help us.