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It's neither a lie nor unjustifiable. The fact that most MMORPG's that get good exposure are pay to play commercial MUDs shouldn't be lost on you. There are a ton of MMORPG's out there that are free, but you tend not to hear about them unless you are looking for them specifically because the production value required to make a game that a fairly high number of people will want to play tends to be higher, and thus requires some form of income to support and expand.
There is no "We could be free." to speak of. The games are free, anything beyond that is a function of individual play style and available avenues of investment, be it with time, money, or skill.
Selective advertising is practiced by everybody on this list. It's an undeniable fact of life that it's going to happen, and hand picking those things that you want your competitors to label your games with isn't fair to anyone involved. This isn't the medical industry where people are in danger of dying because a product fails to mention what might go wrong with it. These are luxury products, regardless of whether they are free, pay to play, or pay for perks, being marketed to a select niche group of consumers.
By the same arguments that have been made against pay for perks MUDs, it can be readily argued that any number of features or lack of features should be explicitly defined in the advertisements of any MUD on this list. For space reasons and simple logic, we should not expect this to happen.
The question of ethics can't be sufficiently defined by any one party, as ethics are a group social meme. As such, we cannot clearly define what is "ethical" in the context of TMS beyond what is ultimately defined as legal or otherwise by Synozeer.
The question of honesty in particular can't really be sufficiently maintained. It's no less honest to list a pay for perks mud as Free than it is to label a MUD with an average of 2 players online as "Spacious and expansive," but the latter probably takes place more often.
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