I think that a lot of the big companies live in their own world and do not necessarily pay much attention to people outside their offices. I could be wrong, but my impression is that only rarely does an official presence make its way to a forum or spends some time on google seeing what folks do.
I'd agree with you in certain cases. I know for a fact that D&D actively avoids the forums - why, I have no clue, since a hefty percentage of their income is derived from their members.
But we know that E keeps an eye on us. Xntrix has popped in a few times over the past month to set the record straight on their products.
Theory11 might have had one person pop in here once. Beyond that, I don't know if they're lurking or just not bothering.
TBC/HOPC check in - but because they've taken a bit of a bashing from some of the members, they don't jump in and comment like they used to. The posting frequency went from semi-regular to rare.