No way is it "toying with FT" to take the time to research one's rights and see whether others have insight into applicable law and regulation.

Depending on passenger rights in this situation (precisely the subject of the thread!) we could be talking about a refund of a sizable fraction of a ~$8000 ticket. (I say that realizing that some folks here think a refund would be much less, or zero, but there's surely at least a plausible argument to the contrary.) I would be crazy to call CX on a whim without doing appropriate research first. What if CX tells me my rights are only X, and I then accept X, when in fact by law I'm entitled to Y if I prefer, and would in fact have preferred Y? There's absolutely nothing wrong with learning what I'm entitled to so I can tailor my request accordingly.