Yeah, their current system is broken. They need to figure out some ways to get more money into the pool.
At least when battles are re-enabled, and the research whatever is enabled, it will more resemble a game that's something near fun.
A lot is riding on what they do with future development. That's not a good sign. Nothing in the current game suggests to me that there's much hope for the future. It's horribly unbalanced. Hopefully they'll re-assess the numbers on the cost of buildings and what they bring. That includes the costs of things. The cost spikes up rather dramatically once you get pretty up there. That does mean that players won't continue to buy things.
If they come up with things for normal players to continue to buy to improve their chances, that will make it slightly less of a ponzi.