I administer 10 servers for 6 diffrent companies all of them run some version of BE from 8 - 10d each one also has paid support. As you can imagine I often have problems with my backup on alteast one of the servers, even with paid support I have rarely gotten a helpful answer or a fix. I have fixed everyone of my BE problems myself except a compression issue with 10d which has yet to be solved since july of 05.
The problem with the paid support is that after you wait on hold or in the call back que the tech is quick to place blame on your tape drive or OS configuration. I have placed probaly 10 support calls in the last 2 years all of which veritas closed as either a tape drive problem or an OS problem,. I fixed all of those calls with out changing a tape drive or any OS specific settings. - GO FIGURE
Back in the BE 8 days I use to priase Veritas for making a solid product & supporting it very well. All that has changed in the past 2-3 years. I fear with the Symantec merger that the worse it yet to come.
This is only my opinion, I sure others have great experinces with veritas & it's products.