I quit playing competitively (and just altogether) a while ago but I don't see that big a problem with it. Lots of cool stuff in it for a small fee. Who cares that it's paid? Don't buy it if you don't want to play it. Simple as that, really.
Don't take GW2's pricing model for granted. Do you want subscription fees like all of the other garbage binned MMOs with very little support? Didn't think so. You're paying an inital fee of $40 at most, usually much, much cheaper, and an expansion at $30~ with no other costs to play a fantastic MMO, one of the only ones worth playing right now, not to mention one that gets new updates and the Living Story pushed live for free all the time. It's not that bad of a deal at all.