"You can try back tomorrow if you'd like =)"

I highly doubt that they need korean overlord approval for these kind of petty issues.
The CS jockeys likely have no authority, and are probably told to never restore stuff unless it is to brown nose "important" community figures.

Important? A.k.a., those who purchase a lot of NX? Maybe that's what my account was being 'reviewed' for. On another note, if the CS jockeys really have no authority, it would make sense that they recently removed the "Other" live-chat option, since people were probably inundating it with similar queries.

If no higher up is online when the chat occurred, then who exactly are they going to pass it up to?

I think they should have made an effort to solve the issue without the TC being required to follow up themselves (Send it up through the ticket or something like that), however overall it's likely that the GM had no ability to do anything about it and had no one to escalate to at that time.

I agree re: the following-up part. The idea this is giving us is that Nexon is not attempting/will not attempt to solve scattered issues like this unless you constantly pursue support yourself.

EDIT: I spent like 2 full hrs on chat this morning waiting, 5th in line, and had to leave...