dourdim, that's not the point. I do win Cerb/Baal every day I'm on, and its not because I'm dropping a lot of money. Being smart and focusing on setting up for the boss fights gives me an opportunity to keep up with the big spenders. Eventually we will get to the point where we'll be using lvl 4 and higher stones, and this cost shows that no matter how lucky or smart we are, at some point we will be FORCED to pay to play if we want to advance. I doubt this is the only example we'll discover.
Putting it off until we've been playing for a while and are hopefully invested in the game is part of the plan but its just another cheap way to try to squeeze more money from us.