The game needs money to run, thus they need to make hero's an attractive prospect, thus they get all the good stuff. You can get hero time without paying, but you need to be the last survivor of a town that has survived past some arbitrary time line. It is certainly possible, but in no way a reliable way to be a hero.
The fact that even hero's can only bring limited people into a coalition shows the central theme of the game, that of survival under random conditions. Once you personally have racked up some good games I believe you can join Legend towns, which are full of other veteran players which makes things somewhat easier, only those towns have new game mechanics to face as well. All in all its a very well put together game, but I got tired of endlessly trying to motivate and organise a new town. The best I ever got was about 40 days survival.