Same back story, played L2 from launch up to around c4 ( first started playing Lineage in 1998 so bit further back than most I know).
Came here for the same reason. I saw the ad with the Death Knight and thought "man that could be fun again". While there are a lot of new things going on here and I really like the aden weapon that cannot break. The adena penalties are just too much. I've only been around long enough to get through on login calendar and 2 days and was still learning all the Sayha's levels and the effect they have. With Sayha's will, I wasn't able to hunt and break even. Seems to me that this would be a mistake, while I understand the extra bonus for the higher level grace buff. I would think you would at least want players advancing with Sayha's will active. Would have thought you would want the f2p to just go over break even, Sayha's will to have some what like an old classic L2 advancement , and finally Sayha's Grace would give a substantial advantage.
Item drops are quite good. I bought the subscription and the first night it was quite a shock to wake up with 3 items in the bag (hasn't worked sense, somehow I ended up double charged and when they refunded one it seems like it killed all the bonuses).
I like most came back in for the "oh man I remember this place", to participate in some end level raids and eventually a castle siege. I'm probably going to give it until end of October (want to try one more month with the sub to see if that did happen), and hopefully this early level grind will be over. But if it stays how its been so far, I don't see going much beyond that.