So I was doing a bit of research, since to me, the concept of "if it sounds too good to be true then it probably is" is more a truism than not.

That's a lot of money they're passing up. But then I looked at one of the posts on their forum and it all makes sense.
Tilt said it very well a few days ago.. "However "free" is a matter of keeping out of the shop after you bought it - I'm now a platinum member and have all ready bought a lot of stuff *lol* "

They're counting on new customers getting hooked.

Now don't get me wrong, I'm not saying that as a bad thing. In fact this will probably help quite a bit. Looking through pirate sites for the program isn't worth the effort compared to getting the real thing with full support... and if the extras are reasonably priced then there's a huge increase to that market.

I've been saying that the big software programs should be more reasonably priced for a long time. And this would certainly help that.