Personally, I like the effects of the arena update as how it effects me personally, and the merchandise boost, and all that.
Looking big picture:
This update, does nothing to help encourage new users. It does nothing to help anyone but let the rich get richer, or help people tanking and saving money, dump a little money out of the game now, to massively increase their money longterm later. This update does little to help competitive balance, or make it more appealing to new users. This is just a "rich get richer" thing.