I think that people are overreacting. The patch didn't instantly end whatever gold boost you had, so you still get to play out the rest of your 1 week gold boost. By the time that ends, you've got 6 super nymph slots unlocked, all the nymphs you care about at least to stage 3, max rank French girls' charm, and whatever else. With that setup, a run to 1000 is going to take what, a day or so? Maybe two? Yes, it will be slower than if you had the gold boost, but it's not a PVP game, so if a free player levels slower than someone who pays, so what?

And the $20 purchase is also a one-time thing in order to be able to subsequently buy gold boosts with hearts. If it were $20/week, then yeah, that's whale territory. But if you're not willing to pay $20 for a game, then either you're not willing to pay anything at all and should be ignored when they make business decisions, or else you don't like the game and having a gold boost wouldn't be a good reason to keep playing it.