Well written but I think you should consider the following.
If the average hosting customer buying process was the one you described as the one it should be, to the point that you believe that who doesn't follow that process are to blame for being "tricked" into buying hosting for less serious hosting companies, then, WHT corporate account value would drop to almost nothing.
WHT make an effort for the forum visitors to look at Corporate account holders differently. WHT do want buyers to believe Corporate accounts are the "[serious ones". Should we expect differently? No. WHT is a business.
A business has the legal and moral obligation to protect consumers. Even one who claims to be a neutral publisher, non caring conduit or mall landlord. Those who don't eventually get federal government attention and beaten royally for running a fraud dumping ground.
As-is, what WHT mainly is = a non stop toilet roll of OFFERs. These offers, mainly for hosting, are littered with companies who aren't serious, aren't going to good by customers, etc. It's made worse by the super low barrier of entry which has guys spinning up shell companies to make offers on there for less than $100 plus a cup of time to populate their account for offer posting privileges.
Guys shell co all over WHT all day long. I see guys with many brands and unrelated otherwise. I see foreign brands ala reseller nested idiot claiming to be USA this and that but the formatting of the address is all messed up and total clues to me about it being shade tree operation.
All of this drives up the need for WHT to be murderously harsh about multiple accounts and other matters to filter the gene pool a bit to cut down on level of stupid.
Some guys have determined that the whole paid account is a surefire way to dupe customers into trust scenario. It obviously works for the membership side and even that was recently scammed by a bunch of hosts with stolen account upgrades. Paid accounts should meet some criteria. If it is hard for a just started shop to meet the level of the bar, then oh damn well. Sure big USA mega hosts will pass whatever test with flying colors as they are: 1. incorporated 2. have actual phone number 3. are credit worthy (usually) 4. have employees 5. have legitimate office space 6. probably registered with the BBB, etc.
Why should there be a barrier to new hosts? Because most businesses fail within the first year and these business are very often these days about unsustainable pricing to grab marketshare, a practice that just doesn't tend to pan out resulting in mass failures.
WHT knows they should be doing better on account vetting. Corporate almost certainly doesn't want the liability matter either side.
As is, they should just do away with memberships, and make every offer a fixed fee to post. $5-20 per offer. Plus define the offers and must include details better. Cause big picture, that's all the memberships are about for most guys. Crafting fake benefits is pretty tired and obvious.
