Intuit Quickbooks Charge $5,000 for software with features that cease to function unless one upgrades, Internet

I upgraded to QuickBooks Enterprise 8.0 for 10 users a few years ago for my business a a cost of about $5,000 because it had features that QuickBooks Pro did not offer.  Nowhere was there any indication that these features would cease to function after a predetermined period of time.  My understanding was that they would function indefinitely.

I understand that software evolves and improves over time and that one must buy and pay for upgrades to benefit from the features of newer programs, but I've never before heard of programs that DOWNGRADE unless one pays more money.

In the case of Enterprise version 8, features like payroll (which one has to pay extra for anyway) and the ability to send emails from within the program stopped working on June 1st, 2011.  David Hams from Intuit's Small Business Division called me and tried to get me to pay an additional $2,500 to upgrade to their new version of the program so these functions would continue to work. 

When I asked him why the features would no longer work on older versions of the program, Hams replied that it was too complicated and costly to keep these technical features operational on old versions of the program!  Really Hams??  How technical is it to keep being able to send emails?

This is equivalent to Microsoft disabling the spell checker feature on Word after a couple of years.  If Intuit is unwilling, unable or simpky too lazy to come up with new and improved versions of their programs so their customers will WANT to upgrade, as far as I'm concerned, they don't deserve to stay in business.

I'm no lawyver, but this action by Intuit smells like a breach of contract to me that is begging for a class action lawsuit to be filed against them.  Intuit has become too large, arrogant and lazy and deserves to be taught a lesson.