Blizzard Fansite Chat

DiabloII.net have posted a transcript of last nights Fansite Chat held with Blizzard concerning many issues having to do with the recently released 1.08 Diablo II patch, Blizzard also announced a few upcoming changes as well. Heres a snippit:

Was there any intention to use the 1.08 patch to force players to buy the expansion?

We wanted to give the players some of the benefits of the expansion without requiring them to buy the expansion. There was no conspiracy to do this to "make people by the expansion," and in fact we wanted to do just the opposite by giving people some of the excitement, challenges and benefits of expansion just for being loyal Diablo II players.