Thank you Sparkleberry, for your reply. I THINK I understand the explanation you provided/forwarded, but still do not understand how and why I've "lost access" to certain of my music (even songs that I purchased through iTunes). Should I have "downloaded" them from the cloud, to my "hard" library on my MAC, before my subscription expired ? (And because I did NOT do that, have I lost access "forever" ? i.e., unless I re-subscribe to MATCH ?
One of the primary reasons I subscribed to MATCH is that I was hoping to take advantage of the "upgrade" feature that is supposedly available in MATCH. My library contains many songs that I have converted from vinyl at 128 kbps-MP3 (or at a rate < than 256 AAC, the rate and format to which the songs would be upgraded by MATCH, if available.) Most of these songs are popular "mainstream" songs (60's, 70's vinyl), hence I expected that they would be recognized by the iTunes Store and upgraded by MATCH. Most were not. (Upon inquiring, I was told that the syntax of a song's name, album, title, etc., must EXACTLY coincide with how the song is identified in the iTunes Store. If it does not, it will not be upgraded. OK. I understand. No biggie.
Also, on to a side-track for a moment, I must admit that I cannot identify a song that HAS been upgraded. If the status states "matched", does that mean it was upgraded ? (I identify songs I loaded from vinyl in the "comments" of iTunes. Hence, I can say that ~ 95 % of my vinyl conversions were NOT upgraded.)
Frankly, I simply want to regain access to "my" songs (songs I loaded myself, but particularly, songs that I purchased from iTunes Store) and get them back into my "hard" library. I have ~ 400 more vinyl albums that I hope to convert (most not in their entirety, but selected tracks). I now realize (or expect) that most will NOT be upgraded by MATCH, if I were to re-subscribe. And, the $ 25 fee is not going to bread the bank. It's more the principle - if I've lost access because I did not DOWNLOAD before MATCH expired, I am NOT happy. Some (and Apple) would contend that I should have known that access would be lost if not downloaded before the MATCH subscription expired. Of COURSE I would know that ! - from having READ and MEMORIZED the X number of pages of Ts & Cs that one "agrees to" when signing-up for any service or feature provided by a company such as Apple (and this is ANY media related company, not only Apple.) Yes, Apple did send me 'WARNING' E-mails that my MATCH subscription's expiration was forthcoming. They could have added "... so, you should consider downloading all of your music to your hard library, otherwise, you may lose access to songs, even those you purchased from our store". That is, I believe, reasonable - and that is my beef.
Thank you again for your input, and I would appreciate your further comment. And thanks for "visually listening" to my lengthy (always !) soapbox ramble. Cheers - peace - prevail.