Rob, maybe I'm misreading your post, but if I offended you in any manner, I apologize.

I don't think Rob was offended. I think he was trying to say something along the lines of:

"I commissioned the original design when it was made, and it's fine with me if you cast a few fascias and button sets based on it. In fact, I encourage you to go ahead and do it. I can't really say that officially, though, because we got bought and we don't technically own the IP any more. But it's a long-discontinued product which was short-run to begin with, and I'm sure our new company owners couldn't care less about you copping the design of some old bits of plastic. In fact, the only ones in the new company who would even know anything about the old bits of plastic are sitting right here next to me as I speak, so any emails you send to the parent company will probably just fall on deaf ears anyway. If you really want to go through official channels, you'd likely have to go through me anyway, and right now I'm not prepared to be that conduit, we've got other more pressing things to attend to."

Your response was essentially:

"Okay, but I have to do this all above board because I don't want to risk doing something I could get in trouble for down the road. I have to be sure, because my livelihood depends on it."

... which is very admirable and understandable. I don't think Rob is offended by that, he's just shrugging his shoulders and essentially saying, "Whatever, OK, suit yourself."

Of course, it's late, and I'm tired, and I could be misinterpreting all of the above. I shouldn't post at late hours like this...

So I think at this point, the only thing you can do from your point of view is see what responses you get from your emails (if any) and proceed as you see fit. I realize this is a legal gray area for you, and that's the very thing you want to avoid. But so far you're our best hope for getting a plentiful selection of aftermarket plastic parts for our beloved toy, and I know that none of us want to see you get scared off of the project.