WME was once freeware for free projects and had a separate paid license for commercial games. This experience taught as one thing. It didn't work because 1) Not many were willing to pay, 2) Some people were bitching that they had to pay to create a commercial game (and even making noise in other forums with not so polite comments).
The new freeware license seems to also be problematic because almost no one donates.
It's a bit out of topic but I must state here that the only reason I haven't paid or donated yet is because unfortunately I haven't reached that point in production yet. I said it before and I'll say it again that I'll be glad to pay for using WME for commercial projects and I thought so even before it switched to donationware.
People that are not willing to pay for using WME in commercial projects are IMHO people that no one should care what they think on this matter, or whether they go bitching in other forums or not. The independent adventure game scene is changing rapidly and what was true two, or even one year ago is not necessarily true now. The WME user-base and game-base are steadily growing and if WME can compete with the other adventure-specialized engines in the market feature-wise, there's no reason why people won't pay for using it.
More on topic though, I do agree that having such effects as reflections, shadow maps, and scriptable lights do cover current-day demands from publishers - at least according to my own experience. HLSL is still not a demand for now but feeling the pulse of the market, it may as well be in some 6 month or a year. If the above poll had a third option for reflections, shadow maps, scriptable lights, and other modern effects that don't require HLSL, I would have chosen it for the moment and leave HLSL for later on in the roadmap, but the poll had only two choices. Maybe a new poll is needed here then.
But anyway - for you and Daniel: can you program shaders?
Unfortunately, I can't, and I do see your point.