IF! SE reeeeeally needs the money then id personally prefer they just merge and use the freed up servers for a couple COMPLETELY ISOLATED f2p servers. You can copy/transfer characters to them but its a one way street. Open the cash shop for those free servers, have some way for p2p servers to get them in game (if through gold, so be it). Everyone wins. I dont know about anyone else, but what some dude(ette) does/buys/pays2win in another server is no problem to me... may as well be another game theyre playing.

Why developers go full f2p or hybrid sometimes is beyond me... they could keep both sides happy like this.