I've been quite happy with Google's answer service so don't worry
about that.  But I recently decided to put out a more expensive
question and unfortunately, it sat unnoticed for a whole month, then
expired.

http://answers.google.com/answers/threadview?id=341341

What did I do wrong?  How do I fix it?
I even provided some of my own research which included company contact info.

I'm quite sad that I offered $100 and no one even took notice.  If
there was a problem I would expect the researchers to ask for some
clarification ... or at least let me know there is a problem.

I realize that http://answers.google.com/answers/help.html suggests
not asking these questions here and instead emailling the support
staff.  But I already did that and they just gave me a two line
"standard reply" with a link to the help file I've already read.

So I decided I would be willing to pay to hear some real suggestions
from the researchers themselves.  The ones that actually decide which
questions to answer.

Basically I want to know: What did I do wrong and how do I fix it before I repost?

Hi, snesprogrammer-ga:

I left some comments to your expired question.  Obviously you are a
technically adept person and capable of evaluating the merits of
documentation for your own purpose much better than any one of us
could.  So my suggestion is to focus more narrowly on the particular
tasks that a Researcher might be able to assist with.  Is there, for
example, a very specific Question that you'd be interested in having
an Answer to?

Certainly there are a few who are conversant in Asian languages, and
it's possible that if there was a need to do telephone research in
(say) Japanese, then someone might be able and willing to undertake
it.  As it is the rule not to Answer unless one is able to provide a
complete Answer, drawing the goals more narrowly is apt to produce a
quicker response than stating everything that you'd like to learn
eventually about your development platform.

regards, mathtalk-ga

Thank you for your comments.

I like your idea to focus more narrowly and find "a very specific
Question that you'd be interested in having an Answer to?"

But I'm not sure how to implement that advice.  I'm already narrowing
it down to basically "detailed info on the memory maps" (I plan to
research all the file formats, how to use the floppy disk controller,
the transfer protocals, how to program for the device, etc myself).  I
realize the memory map info is still fairly broad, but if I narrow it
anymore I can't imagine a researcher obtaining the answer without
finding most (if not all) the memory map info.  For example I could
ask: In the memory map that is enabled after a power on, what are the
functions of all the copier registers located at memory locations
$008000-$00807F. ... Am I wrong to think that is a worse question?

Another way to eventually get the information I want would be to ask
"Where can I get commented source code of the BIOS?". From the
comments I may be able to figure out what all the registers do myself
(or at least enough to figure out the rest after running some tests). 
However it is possible the company no longer has this file, let alone
finding someone authorized to share it.  (Although if you did find
someone authorized and who had it, it's quite likely they would share
it for reasons I mentioned earlier.)

In reality, it all comes down to your comment: "focus more narrowly on
the particular tasks that a Researcher might be able to assist with." 
... with emphasis on 'able to assist'.  It's starting to sound more
and more like I don't know how to effectively "delegate" research to
others.

I'm not sure the root cause of this, but it may be directly related to
my inability to find a good "very specific Question" as you suggested.

Would it be of a comfort for you that at least this Researcher has
seen and noticed the answer, but could not answer it?

Someone very high up in Google Answers seems to frown on questions of
this kind. A very recent question of mine,ID356378 entitled "Secrets
of Google Answers",and requesting to know the percentage of unanswered
questions, has disappeared without trace and without any notification.