A few comments.
With regards to it being P2P only - most common complaint in the thread - the first league (or part of the first pair) to get to lvl 30 on the most active server is the ONLY major F2P league.
With regards to It "ending the game". The difference in bonuses between lvl 20 Fort and lvl 30 is 10%. And that is 10% bonus to base stats, so approx 2% increase to your army. It's almost irrelevant, hardly game changing and certainly not unbalancing to the point of everyone needing to quit if they feel they can't get to lvl 30.
Lvl 30 being a milestone is a bit left field but then tbh in a war game it's a bit weird for there to be any milestones at all.
Personally, it has been a really interesting update that has created more fun and content than anything else for years and we are hardly at the start of it.
You can already see from the number of beacons going up and down we haven't had this much activity in the game for A LONG TIME. There have been more beacon takedowns in this week that we have had in the last 3 years, since force limits!!!
It's not easy to achieve. Takes fair amount of planning and organisation as well as serious troop power. That's not a bad thing, nothing easy is ever that interesting.
Not everyone is going to get their straight away but there are many ways to skin a cat. Leagues that initially struggle will work out strategies to get (I can think of 2/3 straight off the bat), others will have to assess where they really are in the game and wait and build to make the attempt when they are really ready to achieve it.
The game is super boring week in week out. Nothing happens. People just play farmville competing in tournaments. Now we have some real content. Not spent this much time watching and paying attention to the game for years.
I don't think for a minute Plarium intended any of this, but it's been great.