While I haven't yet had to open a ticket through the new interface yet, in the past I've received rapid, competent direct answers from Heroku staff, both as a 'free tier' and then (very modest) paid-level user.

So these knocks against Heroku don't ring true for me. I even have to wonder if the author overlooked pointers/responses/notices (as with his opt-in-before-billing-begins assumption).