I didn't read all of the posts so if this has been said, sorry.
I imagine Bioware/EA chose this F2P model to allow people to play the entire story for free. Think about it. You can play eight different stories free. Yes, yes, the side quests are all the same but the end result is eight stories free.
War zones, flash points, epic gear is all fluff. One does not need all that to play the class stories. Hundreds of hour of play or level 20 like other games.