I agree, EOS without the gas fee seems like a no brainier. But look at the design of the ICO. It was spread out across the 360 days so there isn't a huge spike in the price instead of slow trickle of coins to the market.
I personally believe that design will control the price between $1 and $2 over the year until EOS gets something developed. Once we see an app that's designed that uses no gas to use I think people will see the benefit of it and start drawing to EOS causing an increase in the price.