"Shops should be equipping themselves with factory scan tools", um I do not think so.
OBDII, ABS and Airbag systems have been standardized for a reason, at least the communication protocols. There can and may be some manufacturer specific issues to sort out, I know less about ABS and Airbag, but OBDII is very straight forward.
I agree that more than one tool should be available at most shops, at the same time, having may manufacturer tools is cost prohibitive and from the users stand point very difficult to deal with the many user interfaces and ways each tool works. Unless you are a shop that "specializes" in a specific manufacturer, I would not even consider a "factory" tool either new, used or from a 3rd party.
The problem we have here is it appears Autel is not a US company, has very poor presence in the US and is trying to deal with a global market. They are dealing with language barriers, time zone differences and probably have no solid technical staff located in the US.
I know other non US companies that make tools that I have been very happy with, do not know if they have the same Dodge/Jeep/Chrysler issues, but their support from the tool and technical staff has in fact been very good.
This may be an Autel thing as they seem to either want to reverse engineer things more so then paying the money to properly license what is needed.
Overall it appears the Autel products are pretty good, but they seem to be more Prosumer products than Professional products. I was very disappointed when the MaxiDAS would not support OBDI even though the unit came with the OBDI adapters, seems that they just do not want to fully support their products and they are having legal and licensing issues. Kind of not the way to run a company that wants to stick around and stay committed to their products.