From the sounds of it CoH2 is going to be an evolving beast for a long while.
They've just introduced a 'War Spoils' system where you randomly get dropped vanity things like faceplates and skins, but also can get premium (paid) content like Doctrines/Commanders.
At the moment it's just based on hours played = pure random drop. EG. Play for two hours and you get a drop that could be anything from a faceplate to a premium commander. Apparently they are going to introduce some kind of trade/crafting system for duplicates and further build on this idea.
I get the feeling they are going to try making this more like a F2P game with purchase options to get everything, kind of how Age of Empires Online worked. You can purchase all the game content, or you can get a basic pack and get other stuff through War Spoils.