Getting people to the most recent expansion with mediocre gear is really tame as far as P2W goes, it definitely does get more P2W than that.
Being able to buy gil actually affects the top end of the game, when people are able to buy all the materia/crafting mats they would ever need on day 1 of a patch to help them progress quicker, and end up completely destroying economies for non-$$payers.
Being able to buy levels hardly affects anyone else beyond "why doesn't this guy know how to play his class?", which could easily be the case from just doing PotD spam anyway.
