Beau, think about it a minute. They already know you are unhappy with the app. Of course they would say that!!!! Afraid you are caught between levels of technical persons/entities.
How about forwarding this onto them ...
IF they want to keep you has a customer, maybe they should set up shared systems with processing needs with FEWER customers on each virtualized server. With FEWER customers on those servers, the caps on resources could be raised to cover what's needed (to a point - since it's still a shared system). They could do that ... if they can't, then seek a provider that will!
Easy for Server admins to blame Coders, and for coders to blame server admins, but then there are other levels that play in the mix ... the virtual server administrator (who is now *ALL* powerful - formerly it was the server admin) ... and let's throw in the network guys and gals there also ... the ones that run the switches/filtering systems/routers, etc..
Keep this in mind ... you are the customer! Are they providing you what you need or not? At the same time, consider that one might have to pay a little more - that's fair and understandable, isn't it? For that company, the number of customers on shared systems that have greater processing needs hasn't reach critical mass. But, predict that it might one day ... and not just for Moodle. Maybe Moodle.org needs a forum just for 'shared hosting'.
Moodle has improved speed with 2.4 and MUC and it is improved over all previous versions of 2 ... PERIOD. With some things, however, while there is always room for improvement, right now still require processing power. Restoring 1.9.x courses to the new code/format of file system, etc. in a 2.x will require more processing ... period.
And let's face it, if Moodle is just being responsive to what customers want ... who is really driving all of this need for 'juice'/speed/etc.?
'spirit of sharing', Ken