I don't think KaW needs the option to either participate in an event or pay $250 for this piece of equip (just an example). That won't keep the game running. Technically the best equips are paid for anyway - through seals and xtals etc. But the devs want players to keep spending rather than paying a one time lump sum. You wanna do something faster? Or easier? Then you gotta spend money. It is what it is. If you've got the money to do that, then good for you. Personally though, even if I had the money, I wouldn't dump it in to KaW just to be BC in a month. But everyone plays the game how they want and that's your decision. It's always going to be time vs money. You either grind it out or you spend to get 'higher' and quicker. I think KaW has enough paying options without having to pay for mith or whatever. I feel the free to play players would really be left behind then and the game would only cater for those who can pay.
And yet some people still manage to consistently do better than others... The Planning and execution of a strategy requires skill. Multi tasking- hitting targets, avoiding ko's, collecting tracking info, relaying tracking info.. Ect Meat shields? Unless they can physically take a bullet for the bigger accounts then they arent meat shields. Now days a clan can raise enough gold to go straight after the accounts with lots to lose. But, to get and maintain your clan with superior numbers requires skill. If there is an environment that equally applies the same rules and limitations to all evenly then logic would assume the results for all would be the exact same, but that is proven wrong every ee war and osw. Individual skill would be the veritable that causes there to be winners in that scenario. On topic, There have to be some things that require you to actually be active to earn.
I personally like Moose's "kaw is a sandbox, play as you like" answer to this a few months ago. Winning is whatever you see it is. Build complete doesn't equal winning at KaW. There are plenty of options to do in KaW you can picture successful achievement: System/EE/Indi wars Winning harder Ebs Running an efficient clan Pestering people on battle list Winning new equipment based on your preferred game style (ebs or pvp) OSW Going it solo Ally building/ally stealing Pick a leaderboard and shoot for it