Very nice to see this sort of thing stated unambiguously. Thanks for sharing.

I recall somebody posting here that they had quite the opposite experience, but I don't remember the details. I wonder if it differs between the US and EU servers.

Apologies if you've mentioned before, but are you a US player? From the level of GM interaction you experienced, I'd guess yes - pretty much all EU GMs all seem to have a pole up their backsides, although whether that's by nature or by direction I couldn't say.