Innuos never responded to my email. Ghosted (and, yes, it was received; I got confirmation). I am definitely moving on.
I learned 3 things from this process and talking with many of you here, and others:
1) some people can send their Statement in directly for upgrade while others must use their local dealer (even if they didn’t buy it there as was my case). I would guess this is regional.
2) dealers can charge what they want, including 2-2.5k above cost. This cannot be attributed to tax/shipping as this is technically a modification/repair and therefore subject to low or no taxes most places (very little here for example).
3) Innuos apparently doesn't care how you feel about this