Hi hjtrbo,
As a bit of background on the tuner lock when you say "Most customers are very loyal to there tuner for the life of that vehicles ownership" is not our experience at all with Ford vehicles. I believe it is true for Holden cars but we see many customers shop around and get the tune done again.
The issue you have sounds like it is remote tuning and that your workshop wont invest the time to do that, purely a business call by them. You could ask another tuner who is willing to do that or even leave the tune unlocked so you could do it yourself (there will be one near you). Further you can negotiate with your original tuner to get the tune sent to another tuner and we will transfer the licenses from one tuner to the other if they agree. We could facilitate this if you want.
We do not unlock tuner locked cars for many reasons. There is an interesting story where the coroner/police asked us to unlock a tune and we could not without a lot of work and a court order. Much better for them to find the original tuner and negotiate with them what was done.
Another fun one is that some have tried to move a flex tune to another vehicle, good time waster that one is if you like bricking vehicles
I fully understand your frustration. Roland and I started PCMTec for this exact reason, I had to do 130kms across town every time I needed a tune changed and then it was only once in a few months. Fortunately my tuner said he would show me how to tune and I could purchase another product and start. This was the beginning of PCMTec for me.
A multi tune is quite protected, I can take over your support ticket if you want and see what we can do.