Hey @Lorraine_Becker!
Are you sure it’s not the canned bot response that you get immediately after typing your question? I’ve never encountered that — it was always humans who responded me. Sometimes in a day or two but there was a human on the other side for sure, and never an instruction to go figure on my own.
That said, I’ve heard that sometimes the support would answer superficially, not being able to comprehend the client’s problem fully. Maybe that’s because of the volume of work. Or maybe it’s a skill only available to the chosen ones, idk 
Reading through the thread, I got a feeling that you could be simply missing a few fundamental bits after which everything would click for you and you’d love Coda again. I’m myself a consultant of a comparable hourly rate, no minimums though. I’ll gladly help you get unblocked — please DM me and we’ll schedule some time for a 30-40 min call I won’t quote for.
Also I welcome you to watch my videos on Coda basics here. Those are long but should have enough aha! moments. I’ll turn most of it into a concise basic Coda course at some point (most likely a Udemy course that will always sell at the discounted $10 or $15)
I know you probably don’t have time and may think Coda is not worth investing into any more, but I’d like to prove you otherwise.