Intuit is not spitting in their customer's faces; your interpretation is totally wrong.
Why would you suppose - especially since you have absolutely zero evidence - that Intuit is in a position to take losses just to satisfy you. And even at Intuit's non-discounted prices, there is no better buy on the market.
No, they never offered upgrades (as you are pretending the term to mean). But they have almost always offered what you saw ... some form of discount for existing customers. I get those offers every year. The Quicken "deals" (from Intuit) have not changed materially over the years.
Why in the world would you make - not only a false claim, but - such a meaningless claim. Regardless of what you call it; Intuit has offered some sort of discount to existing customers for years. No difference now. The value is not in the term, but in the price - the resulting product is exactly the same - a completely new product ... not some incremental "upgrade" (of which, there is no such thing).
You also need to take a lesson in marketing: Intuit can not afford to alienate its retail partners by undercutting their pricing. If you had spent any time at all looking into the situation, you would have read here (and elsewhere) that the better deals - year, after year - were almost always coming from the retailers.
I am astonished that you would admit that getting the discount is not worth it because you had to ask for it - I think that proves you have no case.
I doubt seriously that Intuit will miss your business; they definitely will not miss your mis-reporting of their policies.
Enjoy Money.