What's Going On With Adobe's New Upgrade Policy?

Question

My old system died today, so I quickly finished the new system I was building to get up and running as quickly as possible. I tried to re-install my 2 year old copy of CS5 on the new machine, and see at the licenseing step that I had to have either CS3 or 4 extended serial numbers, or a CS2 number. I had CS2 many years ago, but that's long gone. I still have my standard copy of CS3--which was good enough for upgrading when I bought CS5 and originally installed  itunder current upgrade terms at the time. Now it seems it's not good enough even to reinstall on a new box. And to top things off, Adobe takes weekends off, so I can't even get this resolved until Monday.  How much is Adobe paying these days for lost time when they lock you out of your legally owned and licensed Adobe product? Why can't I even go from CS3 to CS5?  I thought that was going to be the new, revised requirement, but I can't even do that.
Can you tell I'm a bit upset? I need access to PS and Bridge NOW, and I can't do anything. I've been told Adobe is far from customer friendly these days, but I had no idea just how true that is.
Is there some sort of work-around, or am I just out of luck until Monday?  Thanks...

Answer 1

Thanks for responding, guys. (Yes, this is actually Hilstudio1--I seem to have logged in with an old email address I used to use--but not on the forums--and Adobe wanted me to choose a screen name. Couldn't find a way to log out and then rejoin with the Hilstudio1 email, so now I have two names!)
Anyway, the old machine died with a corrupted OS (long story, but my fault) and my repair guy came by, spent about 2 hours (but only charged me for one), and said forget this machine, just finish the new one. That's what I did.  of course, this meant I was not able to deactivate PS before I installed a fresh copy of CS5 on the new box. When I tried to enter the license, I started having issues, long before getting to the activation point.
I originally upgraded two years or so ago to CS5 from CS3, and that was not an issue. And Saturday, I was able to enter the CS5 license ok, but when I entered the CS3 license as the upgraded product, I was told it wasn't an eligible product to use for an upgrade to CS5. It had to be either CS2, or CS3/4 extended. If CS3 standard was good enough to upgrade to CS5 standard two years ago, why not now?  I was finally able to find my CS2 registration here on the Adobe site, and it did accept that license. So, I finally got licensed, but I still don't understand the issue that causes the CS3 licence to be ineligible now.
And today, even though I was able to *initially* activate CS5 on the new machine, I'm getting an inelligible for activation message, because it's already installed on two computers. True, but I can't inactivate the old one 'cause it's dead and gone. Why not have a 'button' to push that will start some process in events such as mine--or maybe just keep customer service hours that are comparable to most other large software companies? The inability to deactivate a copy of PS because of a dead computer can't be all that uncommon. I'm so happy that Adobe finds they can maintain banker's hours for customer support while their efforts to protect against even a quarter's worth of potential illegal software use goes on 24/7, affecting even legally licensed users doing nothing wrong. (Yeah, I'm still just a tad upset! )
Thanks again--