I think that's a good point, but as far as I remember (and this could be a misremembrance), the permanent sales that have been held most recently were held to raise X amount of dollars needed to complete repairs/buy a server/move etc. I don't know that there's a wild profit being made off of people's accounts that do any more than contribute to the basic maintenance of the site. I'm not saying I know what the financial situation is, nor do I think your points are invalid, I just don't know how feasible it is to set aside a budget when we have so few users over all (compared to LJ, for example), and the number of paid accounts is probably very small.