Urgent requests are handled almost instantly. When we get busy everything falls back to that e-mail account, and rest assured we do see messages as they come in. The most pressing are addressed first.
I'm not sure if the phone line will be up for much longer as we've been having way too many time-wasters there. 99% of calls are non-DirectAdmin related issues; basically, people *demanding* that we handle tasks that their system admins should. Very few calls have anything to do with our software.
As for live chat, I'll make more of an effort to be on there but please remember that instantaneous support isn't something can we promise.
Being in a different time zone to the DA staff, support was one of my main concerns. However I have always had a timely response to any questions (however stupid ) and am very impressed with the quality of the support.