Hi Jim,
You're missing one small step. :) You've to pay before you can ask a question using Hotline.

>I'm not sure what the hotline is for or how it works. From what I read it sounds like I can pick a person showing up in the "Hotline" drop-down in the left side of the window and ask them a specific question.
>
>IF that's how it works then I have some concern about losing valuable answers from the regular searchable UT forums message bases.
>What is being done to ensure that good questions and their (correct) answers will make it into the apprioriate message base so that the same information is then available through searches?