Facts:

1. You plan to charge after reducing existing class skill sets but prior to introducing new jobs. This seems designed in a manner that hopes people will pay a premium to experience these new jobs, proverbial carrot on a stick.

2. You don't appear to have much content at all planned in the near term. i.e. its looking like Evil Moogle fight is it until February 2012 or later. Unfortunately a BCNM boss fight isn't much content, its just a boss in a room. Making the loot drops random or rare does not give it replay value, just a higher annoyance value.

3. You have already stated the game isn't up to par.

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Personal Observations:

1. The game seems to be doing pretty bad lately. It is difficult at times to put together a group to gain experience with (I know your mileage may vary depending on server). On my server, it is pretty desolate. It's the same 100 people every day, and even they are starting to disappear.

2. You have neutered what little content you did add. Darkhold is a time attack with one boss in it. What a waste of a raid. This should have had 5 or 6 bosses in it, no time limit, and the trash should not be trainable. There is no point to run it now, because with the introduction of materia, you made all the darkhold gear inferior.

3. Ifrit - loot system is garbage, fight is based on animation lock and server lag to add difficulty. Epic fail. Its just not fun. Further, its just a boss in a room, there is no raid or content that goes with it.

4. There is very little to do in this game at this time other than grind on crafting jobs or existing DoW/M classes which are sort of going the way of the do-do in the future. In fact I wonder at what point you will either get rid of the old classes out right or just bring them up as equals to the new jobs.
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Predictions

1. Given the low population, competition from new games coming out in Q4 2011 and Q1/Q2 2012, and a lack of content, this game will face hurdles in retaining the existing tiny player base.

2. As people choose not to pay to play, unfortunately those that are willing to pay to play will find themselves having an ever more difficult time building an exp party etc and many will ultimately leave out of frustration that there is no one to play with, rather than the fact they are paying or lack of content or otherwise.

It is a self-fulfilling prophecy. If your game is the BEST game in the world but it takes 6 to 8 people to effectively play, and it is a real struggle to get 6 to 8 people together to play, then slowly but surely the player base will erode to nothing due to lack of others to play with.

I urge you Square Enix to not charge for this game. It's not a matter of cost to me. The monthly fee is a nominal expense. It is the principal of it for me. For others it may be the cost. For others it may be neither, just simply something else has caught their eye.

Regardless, if your goal is to create a positive aura going into 2.0, then starting to charge people in the middle of a broken job/class system migration is the wrong approach, although it is in step with other historically questionable decisions you have made as a corporation.

Think before you act. I realize that any income from the asset is better than no income financially, but don't forget to measure the more intangible costs associated with this pending fee. A soured audience often sours permanently. You could be doing your IP's, and your org long term damage with those consumers at this point if you start charging, causing a total loss of any shred of respect they may have left for you.

As they say in the restaurant business, an angry customer ultimately gets the word out to 100 other potential customers (pyramid effect), where as a happy customer may never tell a soul.

Consider that before you charge. Is the small tangible income worth the intangible personal currency loss-which translates into long term tangible income?

TL;DR = Move along, nothing to see here.