No offense Heliocon, but i can now realize where your at times aggressive forum posting comes from
I've been an EvE player in the past and if you guys think that the sim community is cranky, you really have no idea how things work over there.
That doesn't detract from the fact that EvE Online was an awesome game (at least when i started playing, i got bored when they started making bigger and bigger stuff that took longer to build).
In fact this parallel you draw is very sound and it does hold a lot of merit, even if the genre and business model is fundamentally different.
EvE became a success by being player-driven in almost all aspects (from development of new features to actual storyline) and due to the fact that it's a perfectly affordable hobby. Back when i used to play they charged a $15/month flat rate that included everything (patches, minor content updates, full-on expansions, the whole nine yards), which is a much more customer friendly way than other MMO games do business ("hey, to play with the new equipment your subscription is not enough, you have to buy a $60 expansion too").
This is what i always liked about Oleg's system as well, i prefer to pay $50 for a complete expansion and have the tools to recreate a new theater of air combat right off the installation disc, rather spend the same money on hunting down individual bits and pieces that are sold as stand-alone DLC packs. Even if the price is the same, having the complete package is always better for me.