This x1000. The Item Shop broke AO for me on a very fundamental level because it was never just vanity items, and was never going to be just vanity items. If people are paying to avoid playing through content, there's something wrong with that content. I've drifted back now and then but a lot of my ingame friends also hit that break point with it's introduction and much of what drew me to the game has been hollowed out. In the balancing act of 'income up front with the loss of some players' vs 'income spread out and those players staying', well FC made its choice.