I gave up on the idea that firing normal ammo in World of Tanks is somehow a good idea. I got hit by premium ammo so often now at all tiers of the game that it has become pretty obvious that firing gold is the standard. I especially noticed that the highly rated players all fire gold. Firing normal ammo apparently now is for noobs and losers who can't afford a premium account.

That sort of attitude is pushed very much by the design of the game, where normal ammo tends to bounce a lot, even if you aren't a particular weak tank or low tier. The reward system also favours firing gold: Having less shots not penetrating means you deal more damage, and for more damage you get more xp. This weekend is a 4x XP weekend, meaning you get twice as much xp as usual for the first win of the day with each tank. Firing gold ammo for all those first games really pays out in terms of experience gained.

Gold ammo also does wonders for my WN8 rating. I just finished a game as a top tier heavy tank with a 3,949 purple WN8. And for the bottom tier games in which your side gets totally overrun, premium ammo is still the difference between getting a WN8 of 0 or 500. And apart from all the external rewards, shooting at an enemy tank and actually damaging it is obviously a lot more fun than shooting it to no effect.

From a game design point I still think gold ammo is a bad idea. It simply creates a two-class system of advantaged paying players vs. disadvantaged free players. But me giving up on normal ammo is probably exactly the reaction that Wargaming wants, because it makes them more money. However for every free player pushed to pay, there are probably a bunch of free players pushed out of the game, which isn't a good idea.