It looks like Aion is moving forward and away from the pay to play model and moving into the free to play / micro transactions realm.  They are following Lineage II's "Truly Free" model that was quite popular.

In the past I was excited for this game (I even compared it to WoW.) and only ended up playing for about 5 months.

I thoroughly enjoyed my time playing the game the last time I played and to be honest I don't remember why I stopped playing. I plan to start playing again but this time I have a friend who wants to try it out with me.

The 3.0 patch is going live today and they are raising the level cap as well as adding all kinds of new stuff.  I plan on starting over with my friend and will report in when I see any differences.