No, they don't go into a black hole
All feedback is taken on board and we (being me, as the representative for the moderating team) generally discuss these topics with the development team during regular meetings. Jomark and I are not part of the development team, we are the forum moderators and actual AppThemes customers ourselves, so we also have first-hand experience with the themes. And yes, we're the ones who "soak up the flak", because that's ultimately why we are here.. to answer the questions of the community and provide support to those who need it. The development team are generally busy working behind the scenes, addressing the concerns raised on a technical level..hence the reason why you don't always see them in the forums, but they do provide assistance or feedback on issues as required.
The newest release was made available yesterday, however there has been no official announcement yet... The upgrade documentation was released this morning (you need to be logged in to the AppThemes homepage to view the full content)
http://appthemes.com/support/docs/cl...ss/#upgrade305
For the most part, we don't get too many complaints about the instructions not being clear enough (apart from this thread of course).. From your previous comments, your frustrations with the documentation seem to relate to lack of mod related content, however this is because customizations are not officially supported.
The idea of a wiki is nice, but obviously we also have some considerations to make in terms of accessability. The forums and some homepage content is restricted to verified customers because the truth is, there are people out there illegally using the theme and trying to find ways to get support. We don't necessarily want to help them by making all information publically available. Perhaps there are other ways of doing this but with the release of the upgrades and new themes coming up, I think this probably isn't going to take top priority for the moment, however we will address it again.