It's obvious that you don't see the entire mechanic in his global view, you failled to understand the interest of upkeep, if there was no upkeep you will be crying in the forum that it's unfair because veteran pwn your ass with their plate armor, plate charger and uber weapons.
Did you play before upkeep?
if not, then you have nothing to compare and you should learn form veteran that told you that upkeep is good.
Since gen 1 under lvl25 don't pay upkeep anymore, there is really no reason to cry about upkeep.
You speak about luck, but you should learn how to create luck, try to lead your team to victory, for example when you play siege don't stay on the wall meanwhile attackers are at your flag, warm other ppl to go back to flag, etc... when you are in battle, stay in the group and keep the front line, don't go in the open to be rape by cav... luck is luck but you can do things that give you more luck to achieve victory, i don't say it's easy, i don't say it works all the time.
It's the minority that whine about upkeep, majority find upkeep to be the best thing happend in cRPG.