They could have the player earn 100CC / Legacy level, working in a similar way to the Favor Points from DDO, at the end of the huge grind the player would have 5k CC which is not a lot, but enough to make anyone smile.
This would make old players happy, since they'll get rewarded for their hard work in the past, and new players aswell. And will probably make F2P stay put a longer time and start thinking about paying something along the way.