@Staffie85 the annual upgrade costs about £5 a month and not really a bad deal considering the loss EE will make on selling the phone on as 'good as new'.
This whole saga has been handled very poorly by EE but I personally believe there is a strategy behind the lack of information from them. Some pen pusher must have calculated that updating the 512gb customers of a 2 month+ wait from the beginning would have seen people swap to the 128gb or find another carrier.
I can't see any other reason why you would risk damaging your brand reputation by keeping people in the dark who are spending circa £2000 over 24 months.
I would say next time I would wait until the stock is available BEFORE upgrading however the cost of this would be potentially losing out on pre-order offers such as the buds +.
In general EE has been very good since I joined them a few years ago, we have 5 phones/lines with them and 2 'add to plan' items and apart from the S20 saga had no trouble with them at all.
I completely agree with everyones frustrations though and EE need to make changes to their communications if they want to retain customers going forward.
