If the intent is to “warn” other users about Topaz products., that’s going to be a fail for me and most other users who have tried and used their products with excellent results. First, from my experience with Topaz products, they aren’t effective on every bad image, but when they work, which is the majority of the time, they really work wonders at ameliorating noise of sharpening soft or out of focus images. I bought Denoise and Sharpen after comparing them to the native tools in PS/LR and found them to be superior, and when they offered to throw in Gigapixel for $20 more when I bought Denoise, it was a no brainer. BTW, before I invested in them, I tested them extensively against my existing PP tools (LR/PS plus Nik collection)

Secondly, for those considering Topaz products, wait for the usual Thanksgiving or Christmas discounts. Also Google “Topaz SW discounts” - there’s typically one for 15 or 20% that will work. Regarding Photo AI, I have it and am busy comparing it to the individual packages. Most of the time it works as well with a faster workflow, but with a bit less control - just my opinion.

Now, back to the OP’s problem. At least one person has stated (several times) just that it works with PSE 22 as a filter, so maybe your best path is to upgrade. And at the risk of pi$$ing off some other users, let me suggest that if you want all the performance of the 12 or 14 bit raw files your camera produces, consider moving to the subscription model of LR/PS. Yes, they are more complex and more complicated to use, and I know that PSE does everything you need, BUT the inescapable fact is that most PSE tools are 8-bit, while LR/PS is a 16-bit workflow, so if it’s important enough to spend $200 on plug ins, maybe consider either updating PSE to the latest version or moving to LR/PS.

Finally as regards Topaz support, my guess is that the majority of their customers are PS/LR users, and they’ve sorted out support for the past few generations of those. Then there are the ON1, C1, PSE, eternal, etc, etc. Add on to that the fact that there are multiple old versions of each which implies many many dozens of versions of PP SW to support, and some, especially outdated versions, are going to get lower priority on the issues that get escalated. it sounds as if you got very personal attention for Topaz, but in the end, they couldn’t address your issue, so your option is to request a refund or upgrade your PP applicTion to a later version or a more powerful product.

And no, I don’t work for Topaz, just a happy user although I do wish it would work as a plug-in for Capture 1.