Lightning Strikes?

[Zysets]

Don't get me wrong. If I had it my way, we would never have a cash shop at all. I find the practice to be just plain greedy overall. I just think that if they must, they can at least do if for event stuff people missed and would otherwise never be able to get.
Not that I would ever buy them.

This is exactly my opinion on it. I would PREFER for these things to be free, or be purchasable with gil, but I also wouldn't mind it being on the cash shop if the price is reasonable. I do want these items, but if it costs me real money, the price could convince me to just not care anymore.

[Niwashi]

... but I also wouldn't mind it being on the cash shop if the price is reasonable.

One of the main objections to a cash shop is that all prices there will be inherently unreasonable. It's a major part of the way such cash shops work.

Using the Lightning Strikes rewards as an example, when the event was active, it was possible to do the entire thing within a day. With subscriptions running between $10 and $15 per month, that means that it only cost the original players between 33 and 50 cents (actually less than that, because we could do other things that day as well), and for that, we got not only the rewards but the event itself. Giving just a small portion of that event (the rewards alone, without the activity) and giving it much later long after the charm of being new has worn off, would inherently be worth quite a bit less. If they charge anything above about ten or twenty cents for the entire package (hairstyle, full outfit, and all eight weapons), then it's grossly overpriced.

But cash shops aren't cost effective at reasonable prices. SE wouldn't want to have to process a special payment if they're only going to get ten cents for it. We're more likely to see a couple dollars or more per item than ten cents for the whole package. Developers put items into cash shops so that they can charge major-feature prices on trivial individual items. On F2P games, this makes sense, because those individual items have to in turn fund all the major features that are part of the base game. But here we're already paying for the major features with game purchase and subscription fees. We shouldn't have to fund them again with overpriced cash shop items.

[Zysets]

SE wouldn't want to have to process a special payment if they're only going to get ten cents for it.

Oh yeah, I'm well aware of that. By reasonable, I was thinking of no more than a few dollars. Besides XIV, which I only started playing recently, and Phantasy Star Universe back in the day, I really didn't play many pay to play games, so I'm definitely aware on how a cash shop really works.

I'd be willing to pay 3-5 dollars for the set, just costs me the chance to miss out on a good burger or something that week, I get the items I paid for, and SE gets it's share of profit.

If anything, a 3-5 dollar price tag would be pretty cheap compared to what some other games out there charge for cosmetic items.

Like I already said, I would still prefer a way to get them with in game currency or through another event, but I'm all good for a cash shop alternative.