Really doubt the users requested anything of the sort and how does the store protect users? Developers/sellers yeah, but users?
As for the lack of force, that's reliant on people's better nature which is something that should never be relied on. Eventually we're going to have to choose between learning to code, shelling out money, or using shoddy profiles/plugins
I'm a user and I requested it. I've emailed and pm'd staff about it before a few times.
How does it protect users? Well, if I'm googling for a botbase from some dude I've never heard of.. and it's using a dll.. I'd be skeptic to use it. Whereas on the store every new revision has to go through an approval process. They make sure there's nothing evil in the code. If something is in the store - I'm safe to use it. Nor do I have to sign up for crap and give them my email and other info blindly trusting not only them, but their payment systems.
Free or paid idc. Tbh most botbases, routines, profiles etc that are worth it are already paid elsewhere. Stick with free singular or bgbuddy if you'd like - they aren't going anywhere. It works. Tyrael is still free too.
I just prefer some other routines myself for some classes and have no problem paying for their hard work. Especially when I profit off of it either in game by pretending I'm just THAT amazing of a healer, or by real life monetary value.
I'm all for supporting developers when I can. I have a legit windows 8 os, office, visual studio ultimate 2013, resharper.. I don't see how that's any different than supporting people that spend hundreds of hours developing and maintaining things for a bot. You pick and choose your tools - HB is no different. Resharper increased my productivity, as did BGFarmer from Millz. I paid for both. I could use the built in one, I could pray someone released open source, I could learn to code my own, or I could pay. That was true 6 months ago and is true still.
There's an open source world for software in general, just like there is here. Sure some more devs will choose to switch to paid models (than already have on their own websites). Some will not. I don't see a problem with that. In fact I see the quality of 3rd party software increasing considerably. Even products that were elsewhere have more motivation because now word is out on the official forums; not only did their potential user base just expand a bunch, they can focus on developing the product instead of maintaining a website, svn, and auth / payment systems.
But hey! I guess only time will tell :3