Did World of Tanks entirely abandon its former "pay-to-win" business strategy?

Solution 1:

The features like extra garage space, higher earnings and easier access to higher tiers are not the "P2W" problem - that's all a metagame, paying players have it easier there, but it doesn't give them competitive edge because they are still matched with players of the same level (paying or not). The actual game is played during battles, and these elements don't provide advantages over players you're pitted against. It doesn't matter how many different tanks you have, what matters is what percentage of battles you win and how many enemies you damage.

This is unfortunately, where WoT doesn't shine. Yes, you can excuse the "gold ammo" - special ammunition that while possible to purchase for the "free" currency, makes gameplay completely unsustainable (even massive victories will create a big budget defficit). So, if you want to "spam gold" (shoot copious amounts of the premium ammo) you'll need to pay - and you'll get a significant edge over players who just can't afford it.

But that's not the end of it. What matters a lot is performance of tanks. The game inherently has some imbalance making some tanks better and some worse; but never before had the imbalance been shifted so much towards Premium tanks - obtainable for gold.

The paradigm used to be "Premium tanks are meant to be middle ground, somewhat inferior to maximally upgraded standard tanks." This is no longer the case. The most blatant example is Object 252U Defender, a relatively recent addition; a premium tank that is supposed to be quite similar to IS-3.

Well, it isn't. The "free" IS-3, while similar, has inferior gun penetration, vulnerable frontal plate, and some more protruding cupola (weak spot on top). Generally, Defender is objectively far superior. But Defender can be purchased for 10,950 gold, that's around $42. IS-3 requires a lengthy grind.

And as for earning gold in-game - that's a fallacious argument that crashes in contact with reality. You can obtain a little gold here and there in various rewards for events etc, but you'd need literal decades to accumulate 10,000 of it that way. Any considerable amounts of gold to be earned can be only earned through winning high-level battles with advanced, high-level clans; in particular not any clans, only GOOD ones. And to join such a clan, you need exceptional skill, time, dedication - and GOOD tanks. Like Defender. It's a Catch-22: to start earning gold, you need to first have, and spend a lot of gold - to obtain superior - "pay to win" - tanks. Never mind some of the best premium tanks can't even be bought with in-game gold (earnable in game); you can only purchase them at the premium shop for real money.

Solution 2:

WoT is P2W because it provides in-game tools for it. But not playing the game instead of payers.

To have it clear, WoT offers further available tanks, ammunition, and quality of game experience for those who are willing to spend "gold" in-game currency for it.

Gold can be obtained via high in-game performance (contests, missions), events, special offers, and direct purchase based on real world money. Theoretically every player has the chance to obtain gold, but it is easy to see that, with allocated money, better options are possible to keep up for extended period of time, like weeks, months, or so. A not paying user in general will not have this available for long time.
For instance, I'm a not payer, playing WoT for 3 years or so, I have been in 8000 battles and accumulated approx. 1200 gold. I have spent some of it on garage slots, camouflage and decals, so now I have 900.

• Ammunition is having the biggest part in pay to win, as it has penetration of Armor-Piercing shells, and damage of High-Explosive shells. But still the player needs aiming skill to be effective.

• Premium Tanks are big advantage in general, but not for a player who does not adapt to WoT game style. You can buy any big tank, in normal matchmaker tier range it will not grant "invincibility", because these tanks have specific attribute advantages, and not all-but-me features. Some prove to be balanced, some really not. Still it takes the player to use them, an unskilled player will not perform good with any tank.

• Premium account provides +50% experience and credits extra to the battle rewards. This is important in the aspect that you can cover repair and ammunition costs of Tier8-10 easier with this extra. If not using this, calculating with good player win rate (60%) and survival rate (45%), battle rewards are not enough to pay the above. What more, to progress. So you will need to play lower tiers to cover these expenses.

So as WoT has never suspended these advantages, the answer to question "Did World of Tanks entirely abandon its former “pay-to-win” business strategy?" is No, however I can't separately identify different instance of this concept to call any of it "former".

Do all players now have an equal chance to win...

Yes. Based on skills.

...do paying customers still have an advantage over free players, for example by having more garage space or unlocking new items and vehicles at faster rate?

Yes. Extra garage slots are available to be purchased by gold, and turning gold into free experience, they can faster get to research required parts. As a note, premium tanks are not part of tech-tree sequence, so there is no pre-requirement to obtain them.

Solution 3:

While i do believe that this question is bad, because almost all answers will be based on personal opinions, I'll try to not fall into that and answer in a way that you'll choose yourself the way you want to consider it.

• If you consider than something available through both in-game and out-of-game currency is still pay2win, then WoT is.

• If you consider than content exclusively accessible through
  out-of-game currency, with preferential matchmaking (and usually,
  better stats until nerfed) is P2W, then WoT is.

• If you consider the fact that premium users (throught premium
  subscription with out-of-game currency) get more rewards (experience & in-game currency) is P2W, then WoT.

If you responded no to all previous question, then it is not.

NB: I haven't played WoT for a while (1+ year) but they've got the same marketing strategy on WoWS, and it hasn't changed much on that one...