hi nick: Thanks for reaching out to Microsoft Q&A.
Sad to know you had a forgettable experience with azure openai. I agree with some of your points, its completely evolving and Microsoft is adding up a lot of user-friendly features and steps based on the valuable feedback from customers like you. I hope it will be easy adoption for all new users soon.
Regarding your billing clarifications, yes you would need a proper support program model to reach out to them or to raise a support ticket. Fortunately, you can now create billing support request and you don't require a paid support plan for this. This can be done through azure portal and is free for all azure customers., please try with the below link and let me know.
https://azure.microsoft.com/en-in/support/create-ticket
And please add your feedback here regarding your openai issues/experiences.
Please 'Upvote'(Thumbs-up) and 'Accept' as answer if the reply was helpful. This will be benefitting other community members who face the same issue.