I use my excess gold for the Stable Upgrades that require gold. I've also used my excess gold to buy greens. Sure, they are not as good as the purples (as would be expected) but they are far far better than the grays. I've been exchanging my gold for a trophy each day. Basically I'm going to get a free vault slot or purple item each month from it, I just have to be diligent about logging in each day to do the exchange.

I find the ability to get a guaranteed free trophy each day generous, I've tried a crap load of free-to-play games and very few have any avenue to gain free in game currency, and none do so on a daily basis that I've encountered.

There are other ways of getting free trophies. As with nearly every other free-to-play games you have the Trial Pay function. P.O.W. has it too, go to the Bank page and scroll down to the bottom. Use some of the services you might use anyway and you get free trophies. If you dont want to buy anything, then take some of the surveys.

As for the "budget" player not being in the same ball park of the paying player, the top play tester of the Beta Test dominated most of it with mostly greens. Skill goes a long way in this game, gear does matter (as it should) and those who choose to pay to play this game (and therefore give the developer a reason to keep this game going) should have some reward for it (i.e. better gear).

Pit Of War is an enigma in this day's age of dumbed down games. Its not just better gear = better player like so many. Its the skill of the manager combined with the quality of gear that matters. This has been one of the few games I've ever seen that actually balances an advantage for both player skill, and character gear/attributes, meaning either or both can give you an advantage.