I'll agree that things like this take time to plan and that they may have been planning it for a while. However, why on earth would you announce it literally hours before the North American subs are up for renewal? Wouldn't it make more sense to announce this weeks ago or even at launch. My suspicion is that they did plan this but weren't planning on announcing it until later. Something like "To show our appreciation to everyone that payed for the first month, here is a founder title". With what happened today, I think they saw it as a damage control opportunity. Why else announce it with hours ticking down to re-sub?