Yes, people do loose karma and they do delete accounts without notice. But no one has accually listed the good points. Howrse is an oppurtunity to be creative, and have fun. You can enter your own GA and RC coats that go to voting and can become part of the game, and you can create your own Helios rays (backgrounds for the horses). The passes problem is not a problem for me. I am, and always will be, a non pass buyer. I earn my passes through daily objectives, which can give you up to 30 passes every day. The promos are hard to win, but they are most certainly not impossible, I mean, they can't just hand everything over to you. It is a fun game, but it does has a few issues. Players get to test new events, which is very fun, and help howrse find any bugs and/or glitches.
I am not saying you must get howrse now, this is just my personal experience. I have had a good experience (and no, I am not one of those 'snobby' high ranked teams. I am accually pretty low in the rankings). I hope a lot of others have the same experience I didn't, but hey, you win some you loose some.