I don't go on the faceplates either, but like you, I bought the upgrade of the game. And like you, i also visit War Thunder, where they presumably make money from decals, plane skins etc And presumably, successfully, if what we read is to be believed.
Just no....World of Tanks and War Thunder alone disprove this.
I would think the radical departure on these new Commanders will (generally) attract rather than repel. Of course,there will be some who rage, but that will always be so
WOT P2W? Nope, you can buy everything using ingame credit, and they ain't are affordable.
Warthunder P2W? Yes, and when the time they add more P2W feature(game breaking) the player base got drop by half in patch 1.20
This is consequences why WOT has upper hand