I thought the only tradable x/5 star gem F2P can trade is the random crafted one with FA runes? Not that it matters cause you can only craft 1 of those per month and it's still likely to be quite worthless if your goal is 5/5 star gem.
But yes, in general this is pretty much as greedy as a company can be. The time skips are huge, basically 2 Dollars is 1/3th a month with legendary gems. And not only that to even awaken your gear, you have to pay, so it's fully paywalled. But guess if someone gets a rank 10 gem any time soon they are probably whaling. So the additional cost isn't going to feel like anything for them.