Grrrr more utf-8 problems

So, working on a site and all was going well…until this Jan 3/4 little update/upgrade for wordpress. I upgraded and next thing I know, the em tags are screwy, anything in italics with a character other than a letter is replaced by a box, and “I’m” is suddenly box IDm box and hyphens are boxes and the em/italics don’t work, the blockquoted text doesn’t work – all of these punctuation characters have become boxes.

It is at all possible for the WP devs to actually roll out an update that DOESN’T break what’s already there? Or at least spend a little time fixing these UTF-8 issues somehow? This is ridiculous.

I don’t have the time nor the inclination to go through my 15 different sites and every damn post and page trying to fix all the boxes and question marks back to what they were BEFORE yet another wordpress update. It’s getting to the point I’m about fed up with WP enough to stop using it and refuse to ever recommend it to anyone. Only volunteers check in occasionally to “help” – there is NO WP tech support going on…I don’t understand this hands off approach for a product they keep plugging away on if they’re not willing to support it.

I mean, would you buy a computer from someone who refuses to even bother providing basic support?

I hope the devs fix this or leave stuff alone. Every time there’s been an upgrade or update, something inevitably f*cks up…