I love the idea behind the new living world journal, but the current implementation puts too high a price on story content to on again off again recreational players as well as late comers to the game. Completion of some personal story segments as well as achievements in the living world content should reward a tradeable toke that can be used to unlock missed content. (Here after referred to as a “Blank Journal”)
Leaving the current gem cost in place will put a inflation adjusted cap on the value of Blank Journals. Players who are active will be able to stockpile Blank Journals to give to late adopting friends, to use themselves if they return from a hiatus, or they can place them on the auction house.
Sense the current system does nothing to remove gold from the world I see no negative economic effects in world.
As far as areanet being able to monetize all of their hard work, I would much rather have content packs that everyone must pay for than have a system in place that places to much burden on new comers and leisurely players. Filtering out the player base to reward the most active players while disenfranchising all the rest is a bad long term policy.
I would be happy to pay 800-1200 gems for access to a new race, or something similar for a new class. release a new class, race, a full set of armor skins, or some other neat item for 1600 gems (20$) and I think adoption of that new “expansion” would be rapid and wide spread. Make a direct gold cost for that same content and have a powerful gold sink and gem / gold inflation tool.