Trouble in World of Warcraft

The folks at Ferrago have published a two-page article entitled "Trouble in World of Warcraft", in which they discuss recent lag, server, and billing issues that have plagued Blizzard's MMORPG. An excerpt to follow:
On numerous nights the affected servers just disappeared from the realm lists, in effect ceasing to exist to the outside world because the lag was so bad that all communication with them timed out. Many other servers continued to function as normal, leading many players to abandon their normal characters to go off and play alternatives and have some fun with the now besieged local residents. A small number of players had become so disillusioned that they sought to cancel or suspend their accounts only to find out that the malaise extended to the billing section with many people locked out of the accounts page, unable to alter their subscription. This last problem is not in any way new; previously many players have been unable to renew their monthly subscription and earlier in the game's life every player was mysteriously charged the subscription fee by one of a number of European hotels, one of the more bizarre billing issues to beset WoW.