Brian, I'm not sure that 'staff announcements' is the best place for the 'help us help you' thread.
It should be in a place where users looking for support would readily see it, or it won't be heeded; maybe the WINE thread?
Another idea would be to place copies of Allen's post in every support forum (in addition to 'staff announcements', lock it and sticky it everywhere. The only problem with that is, if the post is edited by the author it has to be edited in multiple locations.
Unless there's a way to link to a single post from multiple locations?