$80 is large but it is the registrar that is charging it, not Wordpress. It's the domain registrar and it's the way all domain registrars work. I would pay it right now.
Now it is in redemption (which is post the 2 weeks grace period, so you're actually 2/3 weeks late) it means that ANYONE can bid for the domain name. If there is a company out there that wants your blog name, they can bid for it right now.
After redemption, then the domain is "released" into the pool of available names. Then anyone can buy it for the usual fee (about $20 a year ish).
If your blog had a fair amount of traffic (and links to it) then you will find that a company will buy it immediately it becomes "released". They have automated tools to pick up domain names that have a high Google score.
Then they will offer to sell it back to you for as much as they think they can get away with (depending on the traffic your site got). At that point it will be their property, not yours, so they can sell it for what they like. It's not cybersquatting either because they're not pretending to be you.
On the subject of redirection
Right now, you don't actually own the domain - the registrar does. So they are not going to redirect anything. Redirection is actually what owning the domain means.
On buying the domain from anyone
You can do that but you are up against the domain registrars here, not Wordpress. It's actually rather nice that Wordpress helps you with a grace period, you would not get that from a usual registrar. This would be the same if you hosted at Blogger (where I am) or any other blog site (Tumblr etc).
Who to complain to
If you feel you've been unfairly treated, the best you can do is complain to ICANN but I doubt you'll get much joy because they will say that this is how the internet has worked (since 1998).
Who the hell are you?
I'm Rob Lang, an IT professional, I also draw cartoons. ;)