I think the first thing to realise is different people have different definitions on pay to win. For me it is the ability to buy an advantage over what can be reasonably earnt in game. So things that save time (which those with it often forget is just as valuable a commodity) is not something I would count. However, if the chance of getting the advantage through in game methods was made artificially difficult (insultingly low drop rates of the same item as an example) then yes that would still be pay to win. It is a fine balance, and that doesn't even address all the other possible definitions!
One thing to note about the system they have spoken about here is it doesn't sound like you are buying in-game currency from the developer which would cause large amount of additional gold to be added to the economy but instead trading in someway with other players.
- Q. What about gold farming?
- We recognize that not all players can (or want to) spend the same amount of time per week farming gold for that special armor. We also recognize some people have a ton of free time, but not a lot of money. We're attempting to equalize this by having an in-game exchange market.
what exactly the other player gets in return we can only speculate about but it has to be good enough to make them want to trade so Pleb might find it a great way to get a boost. It is also a natural limiter for the amount of gold people can buy because someone has to have early it first. I think that is especially important in the early days of the game as it means people with spare income can not skew the economy.
all in all I am caustiously optimistic.