A couple thoughts: it sounds like you can access everything as long as you open the project from inside PD, so that should at least let you use the desired FX.

My understanding is that CL typically doesn't monitor the forum so it's much better if all of us reached out to them directly to share how this situation has really caused problems.

Agreed,
and
Agreed. I have submitted a suggestion to CL. A suggest that all forum participants do the same.

I've just done it as well.

Happy to report that I received a reaction from customer support on my request to restore a batch of 'old' fax features:
With reference to your query, we've escalated the suggestion to product team as software development reference.
We thank you for reporting this to us and we appreciate your feedback.

Let's see what comes.