Played on and off for years, am thousands into the game, many thousand hours, and I have only 1 nation russia almost completed. About 1 year dedicated with premium vehicles and premium time, playing daily for hours, up to 8+ hours at a time, unlocked maybe 10 tanks or less in one year. they want you to play this game for the rest of your life, and calling it free to play but not making it possible to progress in free to play should be criminal.
I study phycology, they definitely hire firms to make this game as addicting, and make spending money a community thing. I realized more people talk about spending money because the community will bully you into it so to speak. They created a community that got used to spending thousands on this game. I have met people who have spent upwords of 20k many about 10k and many many above 2k.
You have enough money, make the game playable again and you will have a player base, for now seeing this is how you want to do things ill spend my money and time elsewhere.