> First, if you're running it on an 8-core server, that's $16k per year, which is about what many companies are paying for an enterprise support contract.

Which is exactly why this is so unreasonable. The minimum spend for the "standard" license is 40 cores -- which means you're paying at least $80k/yr for a support contract which won't even assign you an account manager or guarantee a response any faster than "4 business days" (yes, really). And as you scale up, it only gets more expensive, and you don't get anything more for your money.