Yep, it's crappy. On the other hand, if they just logged on, made it clear who they were, and talked about it, they would get tremendous response. Talking to a dev about a game gets all sorts of people interested.
As for IPs, there are companies …
The stand-alone client is free. The 'cards' are not. Don't get too excited unless you are willing to shell out some cash (Or play EQ/2) because doing 'practice' matches is all you get.
You can download the patcher from:
http://vanguard.station.sony.com/install/
But you'll have to log in to trigger the actual (many many gigs) patch. So if you lucked into a Buddykey, you should be set.
Speaking of which, I'd love a buddy key…