This exchange yielded several hilarious gems, not least of which:
Honestly Jon, you are FAR more the expert than any of us here, we have no training except to help customers find the application forwarding section in the modem under the advanced setup.
and
We don't have folks “in the know” about VPN stuff.Compare it to the car dealer not really having a way to trouble shoot an “aftermarket” NOS kit someone installed on a car.Like how a realtor can't troubleshoot the new outdoor pool construction being done on a house they sold , that didn't have one at the time of sale. Does your helpdesk have a specific item to address? I don't think we can help you with your customization of the service. VPN is beyond our knowledge.
Thank goodness I had some idea what I was doing and was able to figure out that the problem was the modem I had. After proving that my VPN connection could be established from a neighbor's house who also used CenturyLink as their ISP I managed to get them to send me a replacement and all was well.