My office is full of foul smelling smoke, so I'll try not to be too trolley, between coughing.
It seems like this comes up with each 'rush' of new players, first was the trial accounts and now the expansion.
What I'm reading is that players shouldn't have any responsibility for thier choices. If they choose something, they should be able to change their mind without penalty.
Having a game without consequences is OK, there are lots of them out there that are just 'fun' to play. Games with consequences are more like real life, like chasing a maid around your hotel room, where you can't just say "Sorry, I messed up" and have everything reset.
The question is which game do you want to play?
When players start asking for changes that effect the basic principal of the game, then they really don't want to play that game.
Of course as a community we want more players, this means that the barrier to entry into the game can't be too high, but we also don't want the flavor of the whole game changed either.
The question then, is how to keep the barrier to entry low, while maintaining a game that has consequneces?
One way is to reduce the number of 'choices with consequences' that player has to make.
In decreasing order of severity:
a) Dont allow additional characters, only 1 character per account
b) Require 30 days of played time before alts can be created
c) Change the character deletion method around, and 'charge' 2880 EP to create the character
If the game removes the Alt function, they can also remove the 20K starting EP, and just give starting players the equivalent higher levels.
Players want choices, but they don't want those choices to matter? So remove the 'choices' and let them play for a while, then make them decide. The 'downside' would be that they can't earn or advance their character until they choose.