I agree with both posts, because I'm like that.

On one hand you have players who can sustain and make a ton of crowns/CE by focusing on maximizing time and earnings, as more people learn to do this triple rings notices the steady decline in people purchasing CE with real cash and increase in purchase of CE with crowns. What are they to do but find ways to sap more CE out of players in an attempt to force purchases of energy in order to function, while a lot of established veteran players aren't so affected by this move, new players are almost forced to purchase CE in order to advance quickly and maintain momentum they're used to in other 'play as much as you like' MMO games.

Overall they just need to make money, and while it's tougher for newer players to reach the plateau of 5* without the aid of cash purchased CE it's still possible, just treat Spiral Knights more like a daily game rather than a grind all day game.