With Ubonjoe sadly gone, maybe Britman can get some answers to what is actually happening, or going to happen ? As long as the 30 day extension possibility stays , I don’t see a great difference for myself for example ( there are many snowbirds and longstayers ) one can always do a border hop or go to a neighboring country and get another visa. Now if this changes, then there will be a problem, as many of us spend our EU winters here ! My opinion is that such raising of visa costs will only give prospective tourists a bad opinion of Thailand.
Another problem is the online application that is designed by a fool. Please , Thai government computer programmers, web developers etc take a look at visas online for Burma, Cambodia, etc and learn.