David,

what you have written in your last two messages seems completely stupid to me. It reminds me of a local computer company where my father worked for more than thirty years. They were very successful, had a few hundred employees and earned a lot of money. Then they hired some newly educated 'experts' to see how they could earn even more money. The first thing these experts did, was to see where they could save expenses, and they thought that since the company had mostly steady customers, they could sack almost all the sales representatives. The consequence, of course, was that most of the customers followed their 'good old' sales person to their new emplyer, and a few years later the company was bought by IBM for one dollar....!

>Tracy,
>
>You'd think that Michel would see the benefit of letting the top 20-30 answer providers to have free access to the "advanced" features.. but a lot of times the logic that drives management decisions here is somewhat beyond comprehension. *g*
>
>>I think Michel does give away a PUTM membership to the member voted most valuable UT member each year. If points were still awarded regularly, then perhaps the top 3-5 solution solvers would deserve the complimentary PUTM also. However, since points are not awarded as a standard and it is subjective (which solution is actually the best solution not just one that works) then perhaps a panel of experts could decide on the top 3-5 solution solvers every year and complimentary memberships awarded to them. Afterall, while I agree that it is the participation of the MVPs which brings me to the UT as well as contributions from non MVPs also, I think complimentary memberships should (if at all) only be awarded to those that contribute the most to the UT in particular and some of the best contributers here are not necessarily MSFT MVPs (and some are).