People that are against your business model aren't against it because we're afraid we will no longer be able to rank highly each month, most of us don't give a rat's arse about rank or score. However, some of us that do know the gaming industry know that the majority of F2P games fail and aren't a guaranteed source of revenue or subscribers. You're asking HiTech to ditch a proven business model with one that doesn't guarantee success or profit.
ack-ack
Two system can co-exist quite well. BTW HTC were working on the second system - remember Combat Tour and what HT told about it
The CT design was never secret. It encompassed 3 main components.
1. Is the RPG aspect in that your character would advance his skills.
2. Was the idea that there would be not be open arena play, all play would be mission based with multiple mission to choose from at any time, each starting at a regular interval, I.E. new missions would start at every at 1:00 1:15 1:30 1:45 ....
3. For every offensive mission there would be a defensive mission of the opposing side. Any spots not filled by players would be filled by AI.
HiTech
Now if you have a look at War Thunder Full Realism Arena - you see that is exactly what HT were talking about.
1. Advancing in ranks for players / getting access to better planes
2. Server assigns players to missions balancing sides. (Actually it takes only couple of minutes of waiting before you are assigned to mission, not 15 minutes)
3. If there are not enough players in the pool (after hours time) server assigns planes controlled by AI to mission on both sides to prevent people to stay for too long awaiting.
Add to this that it is full realism arena with no F3 view, no icons for enemy planes (friendly icons only for less then 1k), no stall limiters - and you get quite challenging and interesting setup to play with especially if you feel bored with Main Arena. Similar system in AH could work pretty well even for quite experienced players.