I honestly don't see any reason for Sublime Text to ever be more free than it is. The unlicensed version works as well as the paid version. The only real usability difference is that it asks you about a license every so often. If that reminder starts to annoy you it likely indicates that you are using ST often enough that you should pay for it.

I don't understand why so many developers are willing to pay thousands to upgrade their hardware frequently, but then aren't willing to pay $80 (or $30 to upgrade) once every what, 5 years?, for software that they use in the realm of 30+hrs per week. Sublime text has easily saved me enough time to earn that back.