Brian Walton
It is also common for a single upgrade price for any previous Producer version to the latest and greatest. Those offers have been made for years.
Yes, it has always been that you could upgrade from whatever old version for the same price. However, it has never been that that price also applied to who already is on the latest version. In fact, if I'm not mistaken, all upgrade prices are exactly the same as they used to be, except that they now all get lifetime upgrades. The single exception is those who are on their 1st year Platinum, who actually are being charged more than what the normal renewal was ($199 vs $149).
I wouldn't use the word 'baffled' but this was a bit of a sore surprise for me as well, as I upgraded from Producer to Platinum last December for $109 (Black Friday discount) and now paid exactly the same lifetime price as which I would have paid if I had skipped my December upgrade. Also, the fact that I have hardly had any time for my hobby in 2016 yet and so basically wasted $109, makes it rather sore, but admittedly that's my problem/fault.
Not complaining though, with jumping Lifetime at least I'm done with the yearly doubts of whether already to upgrade or not :) (usually only upgraded every 4 years or so).
Baffling would however be the word if that $219 trick would work. It just illustrates that the concept of 12 month subscription = keep the product, is a pricing nightmare for Cakewalk.