1. theres still p2w
2. u alrdy was able to get a free mount ingame when gpotato puplished it:
- u can go to the Tropical event (taking place somwhen in summer/autumm). There u can farm a free horse or wolf for ca. 600 currency
- the anniversairy event (didnt occurred since more than 1 year). there u can get a wolf for about 5 platin coins
Nowadays u get time-limited mount threw leveling. Theres a 2 hour horse from a quest and 2 mount from leveling-boxes (not sure)
3. the pvp does depend on runes but u can esaily win against a better runed player if u outgear him, mb have more skill than him or just because ure playing an OP class (atm: scout, paladin & heal - my opinion)
4. no Surveys anymore. Idk when u stopped playing but theres a NPC now let u easily exchange gold for crytals, so its reachable to get stuff from cs. (In my opinion it was always before they added this NPC to the game)
I cant understand why u ask for something useless like mounts? runes and other cs-thing are much more important. Theres a lot of portals on most maps. Its often not worth the casttime (above all if u just have a horse).