The hard parts are cooked into the renewal process. There are literally thousands of complaints regarding this con-job renewal process. I know, I've seen them.
It should take 5 minutes to renew. Like thousand of others I gave up after hours of wasted time and had to pay their insider buddies.
It's intentionally convoluted. None of this is an accident.
All this just to renew a ham license that should take a couple minutes max!
Have you written a letter to your Congress Critter? That might get you further than just ranting here does...