Dies to Removal

I redeemed roughly 10 of those 9th Edition MODO starter sets after the Wizards booth was literally tossing them out for free during the NYCC Guildpact came out during (I remember because there was also a "roll this oversized 20-sided die to win your choice of Wizards product/s from the prize pool" game that I gamed to win just short of a box of Guildpact in). The free stuff you get for MODO is mostly terrible unless there's an online product redemption coupon, like for packs, tickets, or the like, that comes with it. I don't believe that was the case with the 9th starters, nor do I think they still have those, but there's nothing like giving people their first hit free to get recurring customers. Just ask WoW and crack dealers.

free "playtest mode" options would be really good, but would also hurt the dealer economy in MODO and probably do a lot of damage to the secondary market in the process.

It's an issue of entitlement that people want to play with a product that normally costs money to use for free, at the end of the day. I feel for people who don't want to buy cards online and/or don't have a way to playtest with a sharpie and some basic lands IRL, but the bottom line is it's not your game to say is/isn't for free. And if you're able to play for free, that's less activity supporting MODO at any level (and many people do use free programs as their only way to playtest, etc, so there's also that).

Having a free way to play Magic online is bad for Wizards' bottom line, which does at some point go on to hurt the players. And yes, I know that's a complaint of "one less gold toilet bowl for x-executive means exponentially smaller amounts of tournament support for everyone" and boo who who for the big company, tiny violin, etc, but it's their IP and if they want to manage it and make sure other
people don't have control over it in other settings, that's their right.