What part of "server upkeep and GM crap" did you not understand? It takes money to run an MMO. Even the Free-to-Play models have a cash shop to pull in money for basic server needs.
You've had a year free for an originally planned Pay-to-Play game, which is way more than any other MMO company would do for you. Now the costs are starting to really stack up, and instead of isolate the entire playerbase by shutting down the servers until 2.0, they are moving forward with their plans while still keeping the game open AND updating it.
Do you not think that the whole process would be easier for the dev team if they shut down the servers til 2.0 time? Of course it would. But for once, a section of a corporation is going out of it's way to listen and support it's playerbase, and to do that, the money from the subs are needed to at least cover the basic costs of keeping the servers and GM services online.
