Yes, the code is a good move, but not brilliant. Brilliant would have been to make it permanent, give it to the new ones with the purchase of 6 months VIP or an xpack. Because there is a brutal paywall for new players.
People are upset not because of the code itself, but because now VIP no longer has new content additions. All new content is either free (this is fine, turbine also added regular free content) or paid. And there is a lot of content that VIPs now have to pay for separately. Not only the expansion quests, but they have added an ED, iconic races, trees, etc, all of which VIPs have to pay for separately. Add to this that now the xpac tomes have the ridiculous price of more than 3K, so many people have considered not only that VIP no longer fulfills the previous role of providing all the content, but also the 500 points per months are very short for everything new. So pay twice as much as before (luxury pack + VIP), or pay even more, because the content of the expansions is a very high number of points.
SSG has changed the turbine model, and I have no doubt that releasing an xpack every year will make them more money. But for the VIPs it has been a literal slap in the face. And when devs later said that something that is basically quite poor, like the gold rolls, is fiscally irresponsible, it literally warmed people's spirits. This is where many VIPs realized that SSG had no intention of making the subscription worthwhile.
But I don't think we can expect anything better, the only thing is that they give the rewards whether you log in or not. The comment about the gold rolls made it very clear that they have no intention of improving the subscription beyond a sugacoat.
To tell the truth, I am more interested than the subscription that the devs stop making overnerfs, solve the poor state of the alts, and stop the disdainful treatment of those who do not praise everything they do. As a happy customer I spend more than as a dissatisfied customer, and I don't stop to look so carefully the real value of my entertainment.
(Of course, SSG is not up to doing those things either lol)