I think what they are doing is bumping all preferred players to 16, whether they have additional character slots purchased or not (so adding 10 slots to the base of all preferred players, but not allowing purchased character slot unlocks or start at 60 characters to bump this number up). You'll still have your extras as preferred, you'll just only ever be able to have 16 active at a time, even with extra character slot unlocks or start at 60 characters (which disincentivizes preferred players from buying start at 60s or character slot unlocks). I'm a sub, but I can see this leading to a lot of unhappy preferred players.
