I'm not sure if I'd call it abhorrent--most people charge for their work, after all--but admittedly changing the pay what you want system wasn't what I'd have preferred, either. For accessibility reasons, mainly; the idea of people getting emotionally attached to my stuff being free was more of a surprise.
Money isn't a big decider for me, really. What I got excited by was people in the industry thinking my work was good enough to be advertised as a proper game and sold on Steam. Working with a publisher is a big step for my dream of working as a solo game dev.
I'm not proud of relenting to the publisher's request to increase the itch price for at least the Steam launch to help them succeed. I did end up doing so though, and you can certainly call me spineless for that.