: As you point out, the problem can stem from how they make income. They have
: to make a profit out of the game, as they're a business who needs to grow.
: So, how else do you guys think they could go about it?

The simple answer is "all pay items are cosmetic"—a la Dota 2 you can't buy anything better than the other guy, except maybe in looks. However that's also a very different mindset than a game like Halo would really support—you don't have set heroes with their own unique moves, you have a single character with weapon and armor permutations.

I don't get why a yet-to-be-released Russian-sourced Halo F2P is somehow the destroyer of Cody's psyche, unless you believe F2P in general is the second coming of the Anti-Christ. Even if you hold Dota 2 up to be some paragon for how you structure them... at the end of the day the devs are all making money off of the few people with poor impulse control. You either feel bad about that uniformly or live with it.