Shutting down MFS was the best thing that ever could have happened to X-Plane. If I remember correctly, until MFS went away, X-Plane was pretty much free.
X-Plane has always charged for a copy, although iirc they had multiple price tiers based on what scenery you wanted. With the announcement of MFS going away, X-Plane slashed their price and adopted a single pricing tier to help draw in converts. I'd been eying X-Plane for a while when the price slashing occurred, and jumped on opportunity, and I love it.