1. IOTA say that the free transaction DAG is not only possible, but launching "soon". Could IOTA really be "non-vaporware"?
Iota doesn't have free transactions. The payer has to include proof-of-work. Proof-of-work costs some electricity and/or CPU resources. Also the centralized servers
oftenmay need to resubmit the payer's transaction with new PoW, as admitted by Come-from-Beyond in our discussions in the Decentralization thread. They will not do this PoW for free forever. Iota can I guess afford to subsidize these servers for the meantime to give the illusion you desire.
But sorry the correct answer is there will be never be transactions without a fee. The fee will always be charged indirectly if not directly, e.g. Facebook is free to use, but you get bombarded by ads to pay for it.
IT SUCKS THAT YOU CAN NOT CHANGE THE FACT THAT YOU TRIED TO JOIN THE IOTA TEAM AND WERE TURNED DOWN.