I am not currently playing my gold ships, as I don't see the point of building up XP that I will never pay to convert.
It saddens me deeply if an alternative to converting using gold is not being planned, as it means I won't be buying more gold ships.
This will be a big loss to Wargaming, as I bought an awful lot of premium tanks in WOT, so I was expecting to be buying gold ships.
I've also been selling ships that are Elited and just buying the next ship in line. If this continues, then my interest in the game is probably going to be short lived.