^^
It isnt a moot point technically.
You are talking of justification, license, salaries of employees etc.
I know that is a must and those needs are to be met.

But comparing Dolphin with other Opensource platforms, I think there are a few of them as Joomla, which are many steps ahead of Dolphin.
Now, when one CMS can be free, why can't this.
Andrew gave a satisfactory answer to it.

Second note: We might need to reorient Boonex business- In a way that promotes sales and increases revenue. see more This can be done by making dolphin to run free for a stipulated period of time- without ads or copyright.
And later after the test period, we put up ads on it.

This would give the person using the platform to test the script fully before deciding to go for it. And if you have trust on dolphin, believe me- Anyone would not even have any problems if the licensing fees goes at around $10-20/month. If Boonex is not offering this feature, then
1: They;re going to lose potential business from newcomers
2: They are themselves not assured about the consistency of their script.

Now a quick thought: Why do you think the Prime membership was made cheaper ($10/month) YET the minimum slab was put to $99 for 10 months.
Though the Prime fee was slashed by 50%, but yet I would not buy it.
Reason1: I dont trust my paypal to hold even $99 for me
Reason2: I dont want to pay a lumpsump fee, until I'm sure I have enough modules to put up in market to cover up the developement costs of all of them + profit.