So if PWE's goal is to sell and make money with ZEN have Star Trek Online, should not be F2P ...
There are many players who have already announced to leave the game because of the changes ...
Thanks for the threads for the S7 test are ignored ....

It doesn't really change the fact that it IS possible to play STO for free.

Any purchase made from the C-store etc is for additional content intended to enhance the gameplay experience. Additional, however, equates to 'optional' and nothing purchased from the C-store is essential to the game.

It is "free to play". But this is not got all for free. I think you expect the wrong image.

Way I see it, the changes people are most up in arms about only really hurt the grinders and munchkins. Players who're more story mission or RP oriented will not have their experience altered in any significant way.

I will argue this point entirely. My RP guild goes through this game very slowly - using our guild characters only once a week for about three hours (it took us about 9 months to finish RPing the Klingon War missions - just to give you some perspective on how much role-playing we incorporate into our missions). S6's starbase has amplified our RP significantly. With the changes being implemented it seems that our starbase will never advance beyond level 2* (we allow alts to contribute - hence we grind a bit of fleet marks/dilithium for the projects during the week). So this does affect RP players who took on the role as starbase commanders who enjoyed discussing the projects completely each week and what their goals were for the week to come.

*we were hoping to hit level 2 by Jan.1 2013, btw.

That's interesting to hear/read, actually. I'm a solo player, mostly. I'm part of a fleet, and contribute to starbase projects as I can (doffs, mostly, though I'll admit that's gonna change now that doffs cost DL). My ships/boffs/gear/doffs are more than enough to handle anything any story mission can dish out, and so for that matter is any rainbow/skittle build, so I kinda regard the whole DL fuss to be for people who are heavily into PVP and PVE grind or munchkining.

I can definitely see how it would effect RPing the experience of starbase construction though. That's not something that had occurred to me, since I mostly solo, and mentally filed "starbase" under "non-story relevant grind".

Just a reminder that not ALL doffs cost dilithium. You can still use the department specific recruitments for free, it's just the general recruitment pack that costs... and starbases offer completely random (well, with a lot of warfare specialist and flightdeck officers) single doff pakcs and department specific doff packs to buy for fleet credits.
Not saying, that the general rec packs are not important, but you won't be standing there without means to get doffs at all.