I don't think this can be stated often or strongly enough: NCSoft has no control, no ability to shut down, no directive control, no input, nothing whatsoever.
Making the game a sub model would, IMO, be a death knell. Frankly, that game model has long since been dead and in the ground. If given the choice between the lights staying on as it is now, or the possibility that NCSoft (or anyone else for that matter) getting a wild hair and shutting everything down again (but having the possibility of further development), I'll take the lights staying on as they are now.
Anything else, literally anything else, is bonus beyond that,