I would point out that most developers and publishers don't commit to a pricing plan until they're quite close to launch.

And if the game was microtransactional in some way (like buying optional costumes or something minor) what's the harm? City of Heroes has been doing it for quite some time, and they're about to push out the Issue 14 Architect update, which is substantially awesome. Plus, their community it still thriving.

Hell, I'd wager that they've been making enough extra money from their microtransaction stuff that it's allowed for these extra robust free updates.