I'll help clear these up for you.
1) The upgrade contracts are exactly like they are now, they are good for 1 year at a time. Your upgrade contract will be valid until it expires and this will entitle you to gain access to the members area to download future releases. Once your upgrade contract expires you will need to purchase a new upgrade contract at 75% of the actual cost, $31.25. So you won't need to buy another upgrade contract until your current one expires.
2) The support issue could be better answered by Ted or Charles, but the paid support looks like it is needed if the problems aren't easily resolved. So you still get support like problems with understanding features, bugs, things like that. Like I said, I don't know all of the details on the support side, but I do know that you don't have to pay just to ask a basic question[]/testimages/icons/wink.gif[/]
