BfN business model discussion

I'll be honest, I love BfN. GW2 is still my current favorite PvZ shooter but BfN has massive potential. However, besides lingering technical and balance issues, the other thing holding it back is the business model. Once the game is running better on all systems, so people aren't getting invisible characters, lag is cut down, things are running more smoothly, and balance is closer to nominal, I feel the game will be great indeed, but until the business model is addressed, it's going to have problems.

This is a live service game. Now while I normally would just turn away and play something else, my love of the PvZ IP keeps me around. Since it is a live service game we have to expect that there will be things that cost money beyond the 'box price' of the game. However, I feel the wrong things are being monetized here and there are other issues I'm concerned about.

• New characters costing time/money: I'll be blunt. I hate the idea of needing to grind the prize map here. 500k coins if you're willing to wait isn't too onerous for those of us that have been here since day 1, but for new player, that's a lot of coins. It also means that the character will not have as wide of a group using it so that's less data to judge if it's balanced or not. Now Wizard feels pretty good to play, but if he were free to everyone like I feel he should be, we'd have a happier player base and we could provide a much larger amount of data to boot. If a player joins after 6 characters are added that's 3 million coins. That's really going to turn people off. Even though I spent rainbow stars to burn through the map, I wouldn't complain one bit if you made it free for people next month instead of costing coins. Future characters should be free and not in the map. Delay them a month if you like for more internal testing, but always let everyone play new characters when they're ready. Alternatively, let us pay rainbow stars (not in the prize map) to unlock them early but make it free after a month or so for everyone else. I'm positive may of us would do that (patience is not a word I'm good with).
• Upgrades costing time/money: Much like what I said above. However, these could be an incentive for grand master ranks as they currently don't feel rewarding at all, speaking of which...
• Grand master ranks feel pointless: Personally I don't mind unlocking upgrades for ranking up, we had that in GW2 and in GW1 it was random from packs and were fixed per character, but once you hit master rank and unlock them all, the later ranks are just not enticing, I'm barely grand master 1 on all the original characters and I play quite a bit. 1k coins and a slightly higher number on a rank plate that hasn't changed, just feels like a treadmill for no real reason beyond the treadmill. They could give rainbow stars or something else that feels useful, maybe unique customizations like how we unlocked special packs and characters for leveling up in GW1.
• In game currency: These really need more reason to exist than now. The Reward-o-tron has been idle for me for a couple of months, some people even longer, the regional currencies sit fallow, and once you unlock the prize map and store 50 bulbs for next month, even the bulbs feel pointless. Let these all do something no matter what you have done in the game. The XP machine is limited, the 500k for a new character is daunting to new people and a mere pittance for people that have been around for awhile, and the reward-o-tron isn't getting anything new, at least not yet. I used to break everything in the free roam regions for the coins and tacos and such, but coins are largely wasted right now and I only use tacos, sheriff badges, and marshmallows when I'm helping someone quest. We should always have uses and want to earn all in game currencies.
• Rux's store: Instead of him selling mostly stuff that should be in the reward-o-tron anyway, or for upgrades and characters that should be earned in other ways, how about have him sell character slots as 3 per character are not going to be enough, or decorations for your private Giddy Park, or other stuff that some of us will gladly buy but won't give us a competitive advantage (like say, more than 1 victory slab and punchers). Even though I don't mind showing my support for the game by spending a little extra cash, as do some others, I NEVER want a competitive advantage over those that cannot or do not also do so. 

To summarize, give us a reason to spend on the game but don't punish those who can't or don't. Reward those who play without making it feel like a grind. Let all currencies always feel useful. Don't make new/returning players feel like they can never catch up or compete. Go ahead and add some things that require rainbow stars, but don't make the game feel like it's full of haves and have nots. Some people just can't spend the time or money but they still want to play and we need all kinds of players (well besides cheaters and toxic ones anyway).