At the risk of sounding like an ***, this will only serve to weed out the "F2P'ers" which isn't necessarily a bad thing. The DEV team will finally be able to focus on feedback from loyal players that actually PLAY this game and want to see it succeed.
The fact that SE is even willing to go as far as to rework the game in its entirety is enough for me. Not to mention the fact that they openly admit they made a huge mistake, which is at least
something.
I'm personally willing to pay, and if you're at all shocked at the idea of having to pay for a "beta" that's been free for the last year, then you really do not understand how much this game has cost them already.
They're willing to take the time an effort to rectify the old DEVteam's mistakes at the risk of either succeeding, or alienating their playerbase. Its a huge gamble, but in their eyes its worth a shot. I look forward to 2.0 and will support them on their way to it.
tl;dr
If you don't want to pay to play it, then why are you even playing to begin with? You obviously don't have much faith in it, so quit and wait until 2.0