I agree with you and Junebug that we need to press management for clarification on the question of the status of shareholders – in particular, about whether we are recognized by management as being authentic part-owners of the company or else only  (in cinema language) 'extras' or 'crowd artists'. Among today's news items I found this:

U.S. Should Show Some Ambition on Bank Leverage

U.S. regulators are showing encouraging signs of coming to a crucial understanding: If they want the financial system to be more resilient and beneficial for the economy, they’ll have to make sure the largest banks’ shareholders have more skin in the game.

Just how much "skin in the game" do we have here? Are we just mincemeat, or something a tad better? Sooner or later, that should be made clear – the sooner the better, in fact. To draw a parallel, the CEO of another company where I hold shares, NBR*, managed to retire an entire class of preferred shares in a short time-frame, and many solutions/improvements are possible. Where there's a will, there's a way.