Of course Rohan is not the same as it was in 2008. Neither is WoW or Aion or Tera. Any game that does not evolve over time dies. It's players get tired of the mind-numbing boredom of doing the same **** day in and day out and new ones simply stop coming.
Remember too that this is game is run as a business to generate income. It is not a charity. Like any business it exists to make money. And while you can play it for free, you will not enjoy that experience - and PlayWith never promises that you will for free. So it is most certainly in their best interests to structure the game in such a way as you spend the most money playing it. They are most certainty NOT interested in making the game cost less to play effectively. Their strategy is that if they can get away with creating a "one click - I win" button and you spend a lot of cash to get it, they will happily provide just that for you.
This is not a private server that only has to support the few people that run it. It has to support an entire corporate structure so when the choices are between giving you a game you can play for little to no money and one that makes you spend a lot of money, guess which one they will choose.