If people want to pay for it it's their choice, it won't be long when it's distributed illegally. Since when do we have to pay for technical aspects of the game? Starcraft Remastered introduced nothing, improved nothing, it's solely a graphical overhaul.
You think that new players will be attracted to the free version of Starcraft? You have to pay money to get vital support of resolutions. What's the point of remastering a nearly twenty year old game purely for graphical purposes (and charging for it)? Are they doing it for the future or solely for "now"? They should learn a thing or two from Age of Empires Remastered, it improved upon what made the game so great. This would make an old game a fresh experience whilst keeping 99% of the game intact. Starcraft being this huge Esports' game could, based on these facts, also be slightly changed for the better. This is the case with Badminton for instance and even in Soccer they have used different balls over the course of history. However, even in real Sports rules are changed and improved upon occasionally to make the game better.
The 12 unit selection limit is slightly more tricky - it would surely alter gameplay on all skill levels, freeing up control groups for pro and casual alike. I am pretty sure that the pros won't even take notice of this unlike casuals such as myself who struggle to keep up even a below average playing speed. This would be in keeping with the old formation style, while removing a pointless tedious feature of the old Starcraft - namely clumsy unit pathfinding. Units could have smarter pathfinding while at the same time staying in the spread out fashion they do now, when moving as a group/in formation.
The thing Rui mentioned about Starcraft 2 pathfinding I completely agree with, but Starcraft 2's handling of the feature being bad doesn't mean that any change to pathfinding would be bad. While I agree that pathfinding should not be changed (along with anything else) to SC2-style, I don't see how horrible, horrible pathfinding and an archaic 12 unit selection limit is required to make the game fit for pro play. This is all fine, but the lack of gameplay improvements is a mistake in my opinion and the fact that Blizzard decided to charge us for it with only such minimal changes is a stretch of moral standards. With Starcraft: Remastered what we've received are graphics, sound, and proper modern hosting services.
Basically, what Bethesda did with Skyrim HD DLC was add a FREE graphical expansion to their game.
I have mixed feelings about this release.