Pretty fair points, the issue he pointed out with how free to play games with cash shops for cosmetics incentivize making the base armors uglier couldn't be more true. I think Path of Exile does a good job of having neat challenge rewards for players to get by doing hard things, though.
I didn't pay a cent to look like that and it actually came little by little by completing challenges last league. But it does have the issue that not all cosmetic sets match any given character, so you might have to play for several leagues to actually get a good wardrobe going.