well, i haven't played PWO that much, neither for a consecutive time, i've left and come and come and left, so i'm probably not the best guy to argue over PWO specificaly, so i'll make my statement sort of based on what i've seen in other MMO's i've played through my life, and i've been playing them for almost over a decade, pay2play, or free2play. Or even the infamous pay2win. (where most f2p are these days unfortunably)
i've read the topic, and i'll try to give my opinion now, so first things first, and concerning pokemon and pwo respectively, i need to agree with what Merse has been saying in the last posts, finding a shiny should be a moment of joy, a unique event not supposed to happen. In the handhelds i played (1st and 2nd gen), i've played them over and over again in their time, i've only seen TWO shinnys, and one was the gyarados in that lake in gen2 that everyone had. I don't even remember the other one. I bet it was the same with the lot of you. Thus making it an extremely rare event (i've read someone saying that, in terms of probability, beeing hit by a lightning is higher than seeing a shinny, that should pretty much state it). In PWO it seems that people with MS expects to see them 'around the corner', which is, in my opinion, perfectly wrong.
Talking about economy now, a mmo without a good economy, is halfway to a 'dead' mmo. I've seen some quite good mmo's, with decent playerbase and a stable economy, with some good items on the cash shop but not to the point it was a pay2win game, where the economy was completly destroyed, and a lot of people simply quit the game and moved on, making it a dead game.
Why am i saying this, well, i've read some topics on the forums, and saw alot of people commenting about it on the gamechat, that the economy is broken, that they won't sell in this economy, and stuff like that. Myself i remember the last time i've played, selling a pinsir for 700 or 800k, that paid me my surfboard and bike, if it was now, i doubt it can even pay the surfboard
I might be saying a big nonsense now, but i think one of the things that messed up with economy during that time (and correct me if i'm wrong) were the increase of people catching more shinnys. I'm not even taking normal pokes into account in there (although it matters), but the simple fact that more and more people were using MS, because it boosts their chances and help thems catch up to the top-tier guys, more and more shinnys (and again, non-shinnys) were beeing caught, saturated the market. I dunno how this game was in the early days, but i bet it evolved smthing like 'i want that pokemon', 'i want that pokemon with a good xpto stat', 'i want that pokemon with good stats overall', 'i want that pokemon with a, b and c top stats' 'i want a shinny'. And what you should be aiming, is a poke with good stats overall/some top stats, not a shinny, like i said before, they should be smthing ultra rare ingame.
Just to clarify one thing now, if there is a MS system, i don't bother with it offering advantages to the ones who uses them, much more in a game like this, where the money goes for server maintenance and stuff like that, and not for profit of the devs, as long as it doesn't turn it into a pay2win situation. And seeing people saying 'i only pay for increased shinny chance', is, a pay2win situation. I agree that there must be an increased chance, but not to the point of people saying that, not to the point of 'i'm farming 6h/day for 3 days and 0 shinnys'. Either give bigger bonuses or add some new ones to replace it. I know that alot of moves are broken in PWO, and alot of pokes are useless because of that, but if a poke with, lets say, decent moves, plus it's a shinny, it should be worth of reajusting your lineup because of that, because you don't see a shinny everyday, because it has good stats and so on. And lets face it, you can never reach the level of any old active player. Taking other mmo's into account, you could get the best gear for your class, the best enchants for it, everything, but you will never have the gold, or the items in storage of an old player, because he continues to play, to farm gold and gather stuff. He will allways be the very first to buy/craft the just-new release set because he can afford it, and you don't, you'll have to farm some more mats/gold, and wait for your time to get it.
All this to say that, in my point of view, reducing shinny chances will make them more valuable, and therefore, pokes with good/top stats too. Of course prices will drop at the beggining, because 'everyone' got alot of them, and will undercut over undercuts for fast profits, but as the game proceeds, with new players comming, and shinny drops halved, people will start to look for the good/top stats too, making them valuable. And of course, letting the realy good/shinny to the restrict number of people who can realy afford them. But since top/shinny's are less commons, if you had the luck of getting one of those, you could earn good money, and start to climb your way in the market, getting a better one, then an HR one, then an HR with tops stats, then a shinny, you get my point. It's pretty much impossible to get to the lvl of the realy old and active players, just deal with it.
Anw sorry for the long wall of text, probably i've said alot of crap in there, but has i've stated in the 1st paragraph, i'm not, by far, the best one to argue on this matter, just wanted to left my 2 cents uppon the experience i had in other games, and from what i've seen in PWO in the times i played. Kudos for anyone who've read through this whole post.