Well, I suppose it is more charitable to attribute to incompetence rather then malice.
But frankly? That's a lot of incompetence. ("Yeah, it'll be in it." "Oh, did you think we meant release? It'll be coming soon after, don't worry!" "Uh, maybe in a bit..." "Hey, we're going F2P, isn't that neat? Please be distracted." "Oh hey, we're doing an expansion, it'll totally be in there!" "Well, no, not as a companion, but it'll be there!" "Equal access? Um... yeah, about that...")
So whether you attribute it to incompetence or malice, I'm not sure you can gussy that donkey up enough to make me think it's a stallion.