CoH missing an opportunity for free publicity?

Balance is one thing, but you have to give credit to the launch design team, ne Jack, for setting our original power system around Damage, Control, Support, and Defense. They *also* tried to add an element of Tank, DPS, Healer with Tankers, Blasters, and Defenders, but that doesn't change the innovation that while we do/did have a dedicated tanker class, we don't have a dedicated DPS or healer class, because in City of Heroes damage is something everyone does and healing is just a subset of buff/debuff, and something available to most archetypes with access to Support.

We have a game system that started as a hybrid of a trinity-like system of archetypes and a power system based around a much more modern set of skill groupings. The lucky accident was that our original devs didn't know how to add, so they couldn't balance archetypes quite right. That sort of left their power system more "exposed" to the world, so much so that we the players very quickly began seeing the game less as the archetypes and more as the powerset types: damage, support, control, and defense. No healers, no tankers, no DPS: if a team had enough damage, support, control, and defense in some combination, it was good to go.

Here we can fly under our own power without wings. The wings are decorative. Maybe in Aion, they actually produce lift.

That I am not so sure about. The AA and TR thing I doubt, but I'm talking about there being no benefit.

CoH and GW2 have very different payment plans. GW2 is currently set to launch as a buy-then-play game where you don't need to pay a subscription fee to play the game. The microtransaction market for GW2 is also surprisingly light on stuff that you would want to get, with everything in that market being obtainable in-game. A very large focus in GW2 gaming is around PVP elements where you are given the levels, stats, and equipment to play. Essentially it is a "jump into PVP whenever you feel like it" kind of game.

CoH however is a hybrid but mostly subscription based game that is focused on PVE elements and is a lot more easy going than GW2 will be. With the two different payment methods each of the games occupy a different space in each person's wallet, and don't have that natural mental confliction that subs vs. subs and purchase vs. purchase has. Since the profits from GW2 come from players merely purchasing the game, they really don't care what you do after you buy the disk. Play it or don't, they've made money. The atmospheres of the games are also completely different. The only thing that these games really have in common are that they are MMOs and they're owned by the same parent company... that would profit from you playing both.