Apologies in advance for the double-post, but as it has been an hour I wanted to be sure those interested saw this (instead of editing my previous post and risking them missing it).

Watching the U13 video on MMO Reporter (I'd recommend everyone watch it -- it's a neat vid). Here is something Rowan shares (and I'll try to quote word for word as best I can):

Unknown voice: Will update cost non-VIPs who have purchased the expansion already?
Rowan: So, the expansion... basically the gate for this update is the expansion pack. This is an extension of Helm's Deep and has the conclusion of Helm's Deep. Um, as Jeff was saying its-its really about closing the Volume III storyline, uh, and concluding, uh, the threat of Saruman. Uh, so if you purchased Helm's Deep all of this is free. Uh, and yes, we're thinking of VIPs and we will definitely have, uh, free content for VIPs, uh, later in the year as well.
While I'm still disappointed that at least a little false advertising seems to be playing a role (it was stated before that all of the quarterly regions would be free to VIPs; now at least one will not), but I do at least recognize the reasoning. I don't agree with it at all, but I do recognize and understand (to a degree) what they are shooting for. Of course, to that I might say, "Well then why not lock Lorien into Moria, Enedwaith into Mirkwood, Great River into Dunland, or Wildermore into East Rohan?" It worked fine with all of those, and the epics played a big role there as well. I see where the reasoning is coming from -- I just don't agree with it. It tastes strongly of trying to get more people to buy (and run extensively) the HD xpac.

I seriously hope that future content (and yes, xpacs) are not locked so far into the epic. So far it seems to not only make the epics not free, but also the between-xpac quest packs not free (for VIPs) either. It seems to be making all new content entirely tied into the expansions.