I don't see this as entitlement and I wholeheartedly agree. A lot of mog station items strike me as things worth earning. Or, what I've seen other Chinese/Korean mmos do, is to have it as both. Like the dyes.

I could pay $30 for a mount, or I could spend a sub period maxing out all Mog beast tribe quests. Having both wont hurt because there will be someone out there to just pay for the thing instead of working for it. Mentorship comes to mind as well. Getting that mount is a pain because it means hundreds of dungeon runs and wouldn't be obtainable in a single sub period unless you had 0 life outside of the game and could dedicate yourself to it day and night. Even if someone ran constant runs at 10 mins each, that's still equals 14 days of absolute continuous play with 0 break time or sleep. But it's still content to strive for and is obtainable within your own efforts in game. An alternate skin of it could be pay to get, but the color variation would make it a clear indicator as to who worked for it and who bought it.