A lot of this is growing pains and something we have agreed to take a ride with when we purchased these units. Prior to Samsung buying SmartThings - home automation was really a niche hobby. I was in the Vera court for many years and the only other really viable option was ISY and computer software such as Homeseer, Indigo and the likes. The issue with all of these is they do not natively communicate with other protocols/systems. So if you want, or have heavily invested in Insteon, your options were limited accordingly. Similar for Z-wave.
Just as various companies started getting these two to start working seamlessly, other companies started jumping on this new “Home Automation” bandwagon…but in their own proprietary way.
Want smart thermostats? Great! Buy OUR thermostats, OUR bridge and use OUR apps. Btw, OUR app will control lighting…but it wont play nice with anything else.
Oh, you want a smart garage door? Well, that is a different device on a different platform, oh and it controls lights too…but not lights controlled by that smart thermostat.
ISY, Homeseer and Vera were the first of this industry where the DIYer could build his own system and start tying things together, but you had to build your own scripts and write your own code. The comes along Phillips Hue, Nest Thermostats, Ecobee Thermostats. The industry is evolving faster than the open source community can keep up. Heck, even Apple, with their ill-conceived HomeKit cannot keep up.
From my viewpoint, SmartThings was the first device that has so far allowed an open HA network that a DIY’er can piece together himself. Sure, this community has coded some impressive apps, but you can use this product perfectly fine without them…so long as you accept (or remain ignorant) to the limitations. However, in order for this device to work in this manner, Samsung will have to control the environment and will have to continually upgrade the devices and/or firmware. As new products hit the market and consumers demand more integrations, Samsung has to make choices. Given one of the laws of physics is that no good deed goes unpunished, each iteration of product evolution will have unintended consequences, be it older product compatibility or reliability.
It is unfortunate you have so much invested (time and money) but there is no way Samsung can make everybody happy.
The only other way around this is to stick with a closed system, which generally require professional installation. If you are in a position where your life, safety or security is dependent on HA, then that should always have been your only options. If you are like the rest of us, then you are doing this for fun, convenience or tinkering and in that case, all we can do is work together as a community to get based these inevitable changes.
The changes will not stop…no matter what we say or do to Samsung. They have an obligation to continue to evolve their product, increase the number of units sold and gain more customers. At the point where they stop investing in their products and choose existing customers over new customers, they will lose the game. Given they have now committed their appliances and electronics to the SmartThings ecosystem tells me they have fully realized the potential of offering a simple HA system to the mass public. The more advanced users you find here on this board are going to be in for a roller coaster.