Right now its for the best, just allow everyone access to everything. Leave it like it was in RO1, who gets it first. Keep the battlefield commendations, thus allowing good players get a chance to use that particular class and or load out.
Already in firefight, everyone can use any class and load out, obviously keep the restrictions in Countdown and Territory.
Keep the honor system to penalize team killers and greifers. If you want the heroes to still remain exclusive, then make it a simple If-then statement. If "Honor Level 50 (or whatever)" then "unlock".
The reason I say this is that right now is the most critical time in your games life. Fortunately PC only titles get pushed back a little bit for review. However with the state that the game is in, reviewers will not be kind. They shouldn't have to be, the game was pushed back for later release (Don't think they won't bring that up).
I understand your a small indie team, however you went for something a bit grandiose. And unfortunately it is in human nature to attack those that fail. Sites like RPS and HardOCP, may be a bit forgiving since their sites are dedicated to PC gaming. But not by much, consumers generally expect products to work day one. And in a small community like PC gaming, word of mouth can be more powerful than anything else.
And when a lot of traffic on your forums, official and steam state that the game is a mess. People might just wait for a sale. Or not buy at all.
So unlock everything, refund the extra amount of money for the DDE, give everyone the TF2 hats, etc. But focus on optimization, stability, and bug fixing. Don't listen too those who say the game is perfect, it may be for them... But a lot of people are having problems. And you don't want reviewers to have the same problems!
Just my 2 cents...
*sigh*..... bore.....
Not that I'd suspect them to take this seriously, but I'd suggest Trip not to listen to any of this.
Leave everything the way it is and as it was planned.... take your time to fix up the existing issues & patch.
I can wait an extra day or two for things to be fixed, and it'd be too much of a bother and waste of time to do any of the above when that time could be used fixing real problems, not pandering to moaners & those ignorant of the gaming industry.
Oh wait, I forgot something:
I'm an RO Mod Vet, so I'm more right than RO1 Vets 
You can buy the DDE right now, your not going to get a beta. And if they take my suggestions why should you pay extra for something everyone will receive?
The beta has passed and gone, anybody purchasing the DDE now should be fully aware of that by now.
Tripwire is know for its generosity. They should give everyone the TF2 hats, and the KF skins. Probably go over well to clam down the crowd.
No it won't because someone will always complain about something no matter what you do for them.
This launch has not been great, and reviewers will definitively take note if when they post their review their are certain issues still plaguing the title.
Anybody who actually listens to game review web sites are not much of a concern as they usually don't know wtf they're talking about anyways or always try and compare every single game to BF, CoD or WoW..... and if it doesn't spoon feed them everything they want like those games, than it's crap to them.
People should always..... always listen to every day players of a game to get some valued opinion on the game.
^ And even then it's tricky, as you'll have those ignorant on the game industry and gaming in general who moan and complain about things they obviously know nothing about..... and then you have those people who can be objective, unbiased and know how the game industry works who can give you an informed and valued opinion.
And some people won't like that anyways, so the most logical solution for anybody is to watch gameplay videos and try it out for themselves.
There were many games I bought based on "Good" reviews from these review sites, only to find that I can't stand the game and feel it's not just a pile of total crap, but a waste of my money.
There have been a few games that I knew I couldn't return, I had no interest in playing again and had no friends who would want it, so I literally tossed them in the trash.
A $40 price tag is a bit better right now, then a $50 price tag that only gives you throwaways. Because unfortunately the unlock system, stats system, and honor system is still broken.
FFS, it's been 24 hours give or take.... it'll get fixed for C's Sake..... suddenly demanding that they spend a pile of time re-coding, re-editing, re-working and re-funding people just because you didn't get your precious unlocks and stats progression working perfectly right off the bat is ridiculous because it'll take them longer to do all of that than it would to just keep working on fixing the current issues.
My Jebus, what's wrong with people today?
Disclaimer:
For the record, I'm not stating any of this in some lame attempt to be a fanboy or whatever you want to call it. Regardless of the video game in question, including ones I would never play or just don't like, I would be saying the exact same things.
