Yep. I made a slightly forced joke based on the fact they seemed to imply they wanted a "new and interesting" business model, because that's as tangential to the game itself being new and interesting as it can be. I also gave good advice on waiting for the game to be released and played for little while before passing judgment on it, since MMOs by definition have their mechanics stretched and warped when they're released and need time to stabilize.
Neither business model in the market is "new and interesting", all are at their core ways to make money to support the game and make a profit on top of that. If someone completely lost interest in Wildstar because they don't like the payment options then I'd wager two things:
1 - they're not part of the demographic Carbine itself is aiming for, and...
2 - they weren't all that interested in the game to begin with and were instead projecting their expectations on it.
And both of those things are fine. Not everybody plays the same games. Hell, I'm definitely not part of EVE Online's target demographic. But I sustain that railing on a game's quality/success or people who are interested on it because you don't like that you have to pay for it is the equivalent of railing on Netflix and their users because you don't like to pay for movies over the Internet regardless of the quality of their service.
Bug fixing < Beta testing.
To be a little less pithy (I'm sorry to break the theme we've got going on here), betas serve to refine all of the game's systems. The fact that Carbine is doing precisely that is proof of the argument. Some games go through dozens of design, coding and testing iterations before a system is released, which means the overarching game design is also fluid. The last things that should be worked on in a beta are bugs that don't make the game unplayable, which is why I suggested the beta could only be used as a good reference for game design near the end of the process. And even then, the beta by definition has fewer people and less emergent gameplay than the released version, which also affects how the game plays.
And just so I don't sound like a total fanboy: I think Wildstar is going to be successful (in the sense that it will cover its costs and keep on going) with the subscription model, but it's not going to be a breakout title or anything exceptional. What I predict is going to end up the point of greatest criticism (if the developers remain true to their word) is that it tried too hard to emulate Vanilla World of Warcraft, which is a model that simply doesn't work anymore. The folks who were hyped on that are going to say it compromised too much and call it a failure.
By the way, for people who are criticizing Carbine's PR department... keep in mind they released this information over six months in advance of the game's release. By the time Wildstar is out of beta, the controversy will be colder than a dead angel on ice.