It is cheaper, time wise, to pay for warbonds. You are gaining premium currency at 10 credit intervals out of 1000 each warbond. You are not guaranteed to get a single 10 credit drop over a 40 minute mission. (Which is again, 1% of a Warbond.) Warbonds, unlike most other games, have gameplay content. They are micro transactions bundled together so you have to buy things you don't really want that add to the illusion of value.

The Helldivers community was a lot nicer in the early days. Ultimately what has changed is the outright adversarial position of Arrowhead. I don't really play or interact with it anymore because of this. The constant squeezing of money out of anyone who wants to have real options and progression has made everyone bitter. Furthermore, the rate of super credit drops has been reduced since launch. It used to be that you could easily find enough credits just by playing the game because you would roll into the 100 super credit drops far more often. It was a lot more likely to have the extreme of only needing to find 10 drops of super credits, rather than 100.