Reaching a human being is a common problem with all Internet businesses. I've had similar frustrations with Google competitors. As an industry, we have to do much better with customer service. Our users are real human beings.
But before I got my first HostGator account, I called their tech support line at 2 AM, and got a guy named Chris with a strong Texan accent. And I've had escalated issues at odd hours where I've actually spoken directly to sysadmins there. Ticket support only hosting simply can't compete with that service, no matter the cost.