Team fortress 2 did the same and it was widely considered as a great move. But then, Gaben can get away with stuff like that. Relic doesn't have much good will with existing fans.
Speaking as someone who practically preordered EVERYTHING (CoH2, AA, WFA), I for one would not mind CoH2 becoming f2p, I have like 1200+ hrs or something, every cent I poured into this game has paid off in spades. More players in automatch can only do good for this game.
I would not mind f2p either. I mean, i played had fun and honestly what is the difference betweeen a steam sale every 2 months where the game is avalable for 5-8 $ and f2p.
Best thing would be to just make multiplayer f2p and get some money for skin, leave the singleplayer at a small entry price so relic gets some money from there too.
It would have been best from the beginning if multiplayer (ladder) would not have been affected by Commanders at all. It was not a smart decission. If ladder is such a small group there was not a chance to earn money from them at the beginning so why annoy them with p2w commanders.
In Comp Stomps /fun mulitplayer on the other hand, which i did not play in the past, p2w would have been funny. Getting a commander with 3 king Tiger in lategame would have been funny. I would have paid for it.
The wrong decission was from the beginning not to divide the small e-sport ladder Community from the rest. The point behind was understandable (making a small group even smaller does not sound too smart), but in the end nobody got what they wanted.
I really hope relic learns from coh2 and does not do the mistake with dow3 or whatever title comes next again. In my dreams relic fixes that problem with coh2.
Best Regards
awa59