After haveing not spent anything in over a year, I can understand a newer player leaving ( within 6 months).
In an advertised free to play game, one can not be competitive. While joining an established league with help and great advice does change the curve. The larger, more established league the bigger and more chance of enemies, brings different challenges to a newer player.
Many posting here have been in game a long time and most can recall the early leveling system, where you had to learn the game to level up. I was told by another player (long gone now), that the leveling change and coming changes would be the ruin of the game. Looking back, that was a true staement, not for that change but for the direction the game started to take.
Without level fighing caps and troop limits or balances there is no game.
I do also play another game, where yes I can send whatever troop count i want, ie:1 mil count with a 3.5 mil offense stat. And while you can not revive you get penalized for a lose also similar to losing levels. But the game is monitored in such a way intentional level dropping is caught to help maintain a more level playing field. It is not perfect either, but they are making the efforts to improve the players experience, and yes you can spend money for troops, boosts etc,,, not a single item is available that you can not get in free play with almost minimal effort, except speed boosts for buildings .
In the end, i find myself clicking on to login here each day, wondering if it will be my last time....
Well I'm guessing if it was possible to lose levels here people wouldn't be very happy, since some of them put a lot of work into getting their level up. Some kind of troop limit is probably needed, but having an attack limit based on level is probably a bad idea since it punishes players for actively playing and leveling up.