Subscriptions are bad for gamers, pure and simple. They are however good for business. Gamers don't want incremental content, they want lots of content in the box. Then when that content is exhausted they move on to the next game.

    In basic economic terms risk is a cost. A subscription is a cost transfer from the publisher to the subscriber. Instead of them taking the risk their product sucks and us not buying it, we are taking the risk their product not being worth the money and us not enjoying it. Why do you think cell phone, cable, ISP, gyms, etc try to lock you in to long term contracts? Because then you own the risk and they get the reward.

    We shouldn't encourage this type of behavior because if we support it financially it will only get worse. More and more content will be held back to the point where gamers are paying $50 for a box with a game engine in and on the back of the box it will say "content sold separately."

With that out of the way here is the major problem with the current "elite" proposal:

1. If there is elite content (monsters, items, areas) at launch then that means content was cut from the box. The exception is if this content was developed after the final alpha build. Just think about that all of you who plan to subscribe. The developers sat at a table and took all the content in the game and divided it into "haves" and "have nots". Then they took this content they already had finished and decided to charge you for it, even though they could have just as easily have included it in the box.

2. Stash and character limit are artificial limitations, or as my friend put it "spiteful gouging." These differences aren't there to make the elite option look better, they are just there to make the free option look worse. I would feel a lot better about elite if these two things were changed.

3. Separate but equal NEVER works. There is no way to elite items will just "look pretty". They will be better in every way than "free" items. Even if they aren't at first eventually they will be because of the pressure to make elite more attractive. Imagine two people playing d2lod, one of them only using items available before the expansion. Eventually the game's difficulty will be scaled to take into account these better elite items so while there will be no limitations on "second class" players entering nightmare and hell difficulties, the reality is they won't be able to compete.

4. Shuttles: imagine playing world of warcraft without flight paths? Nuff said.

How to fix it:
1. Remove the artificial limitations: If the alleged "extra content" isn't good enough to get subscribers then subscriptions aren't deserved.
2. Open battle net: no limit on character (stored locally), just matching players to games. Everyone is happy, I get to play with my friends, I get to mule the hundreds of items I want to collect, and subscribers can pay for closed, cheat free play with all the bells and whistles and extra content.