I understand where you're coming from. I don't think the business tactics, if that's what you must call them, are questionable. This upgrade was a huge undertaking - it was a full rewrite of all core features plus a new filesystem, a new GUI - will also include many other new features and filesystems throughout the 2.x line. We don't have the luxury of giving it away. We work extremely hard to provide a good product and great support. If you don't think an upgrade is justified, then you don't have to. Perhaps wait a couple months for more features. We're not turning off support for our 1.x line - it was just time to rev our core and keep going. Also, FWIW, we'll be releasing an update to the 1.x line this week that incorporates all the updates to the FTP/FTPS layer.
(Version 2.0)