This is such a very strange way to coerce players into buying an expansion, at this point I suspect this is solely due to lack of expansion and any confirmation from Arena net would be nice. Although, if this is not an error/bug/glitch, I am certain I will not be buying any gems or expansions going forward which would encourage this type of restricting.
I could go into further detail how this does not align with previous statements from Gw1-Gw2 teams, but it is too tiresome to discourse with the excess of goal post moving defenders that have no affiliation to Arena net but are willing to defend them to their last breath