Well, you need to do something sooner or later.

It's not connected to EP gap. Bacause of couse we care about EP, but it will be not a big difference - between 5 and 6 levels of skills. Quite frankly, there's not such a big difference in Lvl-3 and Lvl-5 missions as i can see(test server). The rewards is much better, but the gameplay is exactly the same.
The NIC is also not a problem for a total newbie. Because if you expecting them to pay that much without a trial then it's not a miracle that they'll also buy one ICE, sell it on market, and buy everything they need, from light to heavy.

That so called "gaps" it isn't the reason newbies quit.
It's actually the same reasons the older players are complaining: the market, the online, the interesing PvE. Well, then fix the market, for online make it F2P which it already mostly is, and then deliver cool new stuff