Hi John,
Completely understand the frustration - the removal of Try & Buy was not well executed and we know that.
With regards to your 4 major concerns:
1. This can be alleviated but deeplinking between your two products (unsure why you'd deeplink from Paid to Trial, but the options are there for you to implement how you see fit). Users running the Trial get a nag upon launch that when clicked deeplinks them right to the Paid version in App World. No need to search, or go looking for the Paid version of a Product they might really like and want to pay for.
2. Agreed - no longer do we have Paid apps advertising that a Free Trial is available. This is something we need to look into as we move forward. An example I'm thinking of on this early Saturday morning is allowing Vendors to use a flag on their Paid versions and link that to a Free version within the Vendor Portal. This creates a link and changes the visual behavior of the app on the store (adds the "+Free Trial" and a button to acquire it). Again, just thinking out loud but I fully agree with you here.
3. Correct, in most cases the masses will flock to the Free version so mathmatically you'll acquire more less-than-positive reviews on the Free version. The other way of looking at it is your Paid version (and it's good reviews) won't be dragged down by users reviewing the Free Trial under the same SKU. I see a case for both approaches here (ie. Not all bad one way, and all good the other way).
4. I see your point here, and can discuss this with Development on potential solutions (unfortunately not my area of expertise).
Re: Managing Multiple Releases - There is another thread about meta-data being approved at the same time as corresponding Releases; a solution is being looked at to streamline these types of approvals (1 Vendor, multiple approvals required at the same time). I don't have an answer but a problem we need to try and solve.
Re: Marketing - True, but you may actually benefit from having two seperate SKU's vs. just one. Some use cases below:
a) We Feature your Free app: Because it's Free, you get a large uptake on downloads. If you implemented a similar solution to what I mentioned in my first point above, you'd most likely get just as good of a turn-over as you would today from a Try & Buy app (user experience would be 2 extra buttons - and if someone is going to pay for an app, these 2 button are not a showstopper).
b) We Feature your Paid app: Because the Feature brings users right to your Paid version (with no direct option to snag it for Free), you'd most likely end up with a higher Purchase rate than before (no worse).
Don't get me wrong - I'm completely with you on the frustration of the situation, and what appears to be a huge slap in the face w/ regards to your application. Most of the challenges can be overcome, and I havent even addressed using In-App Payments to build in even more revenue generating opportunities.
