I'm a dolphin and I don't care that whales get things first and I get them later. The problem is the gear wall. Having to waste expensive gear on useless characters to get a useful character is dumb and pushes f2p farther behind until they quit. Doesn't help whales either to keep piling on more requirements to make your first investment good enough to use. Unfortunately whales are willing to keep piling on the money, so CG can keep increasing the requirements knowing the whales will spend it out of fear of losing to other whales.
So maybe it becomes harder to get shards - that could be fine, IF the gear wall gets pushed back down to 8 or 9 with decent mods. That way whales go back to getting characters first and f2p/dolphins don't have to waste gear 3 months later to get a character that is now less relevant.
