Just to get your original question out of the way (
it would've made a good "poll"): I
personally would not consider purchasable items part of
F2P.
There's been a great deal of valuable insight in this thread... but
@Chops pretty-much summed it all up with that one sentence.
Different people are impressed by different things:
- If you somehow collect everything that a Trial Account can obtain "...by any means necessary", then people will be impressed by that.
- If you choose to add extra account restrictions (non-linked, no purchases, etc.), then some may be more-impressed by that.
- If you want to add extra in-game restrictions (solo-play, single-toon, etc.), then a few may be even-more impressed by that.
...but in the end, the most important person to impress is
yourself.
I certainly don't expect anyone to give a damn about all of the
#UltraSoloF2P nonsense that I subject myself to... but I'm still proud that I've been able to endure it for almost eight years!
Heh...
TL;DR: All it takes to play
F2P "correctly", is to consistently abide by whatever restrictions
you may have set for yourself!