I understand Kyle, but the Microsoft Learn - Q & A forums are where the true Microsoft employees supporting their products have accounts and reside, while as you mentioned most here are either volunteers like me or Microsoft contractors with various levels of knowledge and likely still no access to the internal Microsoft staff.
The difference in my case is I'm a retired 45+ year computing and security professional who has been involved in Microsoft forums going back to the newsgroups and also one of only 2 past MVPs who originally had access to the Technical Product Manager for the Windows Live OneCare and Microsoft Security Essentials products and the teams developing those as well.
I've been invited to join these forums as a volunteer moderator, but haven't completed my preparations for that role yet, which as I understand it may provide some additional access to a few Microsoft teams again, though far more limited than in the past.
It's okay that you choose to hold discussions here with other professionals, but I'm telling you clearly that it's not the structure that Microsoft supports for IT professionals, so it's never going to get any recognition from anyone who can truly do anything about it. I agree that the new structure is confusing and thus far fewer professionals have been going to the correct place as a result, but that's what you should all be making clear to Microsoft through whatever other support channels you have, since until they hear that loud and clear, nothing will change.
As an MVP from 2007-11 I was directly on the back-channel communications chain with access to product leads, which started to decay shortly after Windows 7 released as I recall. However, since I exited MVP status around that same time due to the switch to the built-in Windows Defender in Windows 8, I only heard about this from others still in the program at the time, so I've mostly been unaware what may have replaced these since I'd left.
I'd tried to get professionals to use the new Learn structure when Microsoft created it, but it's so tightly integrated into Microsoft Learn that it doesn't truly appear like a traditional forums format, which is likely why it's apparently been badly accepted by that more technical community which was more used to either newsgroups or TechNet/Developer forums of the past. I'm guessing that many of the people who'd traditionally run both TechNet and many of the other product programs also either left or simply retired as well, which is in all likelihood why much of the past support structure now also seems to have disappeared.
Rob