Hi Brian,
I’m afraid that’s not true. From version 2.8.1 up to version 3.1.0 the settings are carried over.
After 3.1.0 this was removed due to the fact that 2.8.1 is now over a year old so I can’t really be held accountable if people don’t keep their sites up to date in over a year.
In addition, I gave a whole years notification period for this with notifications and webpages explaining it. I feel like I did all I can (including contingency strategies as described below).
You can download version 3.0.1 which will automatically copy over your settings from the old version and then you can upgrade from there keeping your settings.
I really wish you had asked me about this in the support forum first (thats why its there) rather than leaving a negative review as there are many ways to solve this very quickly.
All the best
Peter