BTW, that "36" price is just a calculated from current S1 and S2 prices (and I think Scawen did plan it like that 10y ago or so...). It's not official, till it's released, so don't blame me if there will be some adjustment or total change to commercial model of LFS. Although I have to give credit to Scawen for being very consistent over the years with his original vision.
Than again, checking now the revamped site and the about/faq pages I see the S3 gets much less mention, I think there was more about it years ago. It makes lot of sense anyway, as I don't see how the S3 can be final stage, as it was in envisioned, and there's so much more ground to cover in terms of car racing simulator... as long as people will support LFS, I think there will be always something new for Scawen to work on (if he will want to continue on this project). And also S2 is quite finished product already. So he's both ahead and behind his original vision.
"I thought the original idea was that S3 content was free S2 users"
- now I really wonder how you got that one. S2 users have for free new additional S2 content. Just like S1 users have new S1 content, and just as demo users lost their drift car to wake up with proper formula car (I certainly didn't regret it, for me drifting means I did a huge mistake on turn entry, while formula car is where I feel at home and happy). I can't see why some content would be decided as S3 content, and then made available to S2 license... you can simply put such content into S2 since the start, no need for "S3" label then.