HA! As if! The patcher stopped downloading the revised patcher after 576K, every single time. Nothing could persuade it to do anything else. that was on my PC, anyway; on my daughter's the patcher patched itself OK but then it got stuck downloading the regular files. Maybe I'll copy her patcher onto my box and see if I can get further...
Meanwhile, in frustration, we installed Lord of the Rings Online from a free Gold Edition given out at the Staffordshire University thing I went to a few weeks ago. Here's what the payment options screen looked like:
You know, I think some of those payment plans may benefit from further explanation.