www.spiegel.de, one of Germany's more reputable news sources, just posted a rather upbeat article about the flight ("with return fares of € 2.200").
http://www.spiegel.de/reise/aktuell/...652072,00.html
As part of the same article, they actually correctly summarized the pay-for-your-seat rules in one paragraph, including the fact that OLCI provides seat allocation still free.