The thing is, it wouldn't have cost them anything for them to have sent me an automated email to tell me that my order needed to be manually checked, and I would get it within X hours/days. In fact, because they didn't give me this information up front, I ended up logging a support ticket to find out what was going on.

It wouldn't have cost them anything to tell me up front that IPs aren't automatically provisioned and required manual intervention and it would take ~24 hours before I get them either. Luckily for them, this time I didn't log a support ticket, because I just assumed that they would have crap processes and that's why it was taking so long. I mean, why did it take so long? Where they manually checking my order again, even though I used the same payment details? Does somebody need to manually pick some IP addresses from a spreadsheet? Why is this process not entirely automatic?

This is the sort of thing that should be automated for low cost hosting systems, precisely to prevent having to provide unnecessary support.

That is only partly true. First of all OVH has different offerings (and I expect that I can get a new cloud server any time?) and Hetzner replied instantly to us when we had a server down on a Saturday. You can even call them by phone. Hetzner is no cloud and mp fluff and feels a bit aged, but the support is not bad and for normal questions within hours on working days. PS: I do not work for them ;)