Sounds good to me seeing as this game desperately needs players. Bringing some players in could do something to make your current players feel nice. A lot of games that are down on players do this and it is just something nice to do I guess. Not that I could really benefit from this, I've tried to invite tons of friends to this game who eventually lost interest.
I would be in favor of this, except I have the feeling most of the "new players" will really just be second accounts for people to get stuff. Unless you put in some requirement like: Spend X Amount of money at the store. Or play for X amount of hours (this one seems exploitable though). Or maybe even unlock X amount of Pros.
I think there are measures to prevent he use of smurf accounts. Isn't it in other games for it to count the new player must hit a certain level or something.
This is not preventing smurf accounts. If anything its just saying to level up another account and get the benefits on your main account.