I know this is not the usual kind of suggestion here, but here it goes. While I'm no longer in the game industry, I have something like 5 years of experience working one designing and monetizing social/mobile games. I'm not trying to toot my own horn, but I've implemented these sorts of tweaks before and they really do work and can increase monetization meaningfully. Basically, the CH Club is a great idea, and I'm sure it monetizes very well, especially for more committed players. They clearly understand the value of it, and don't mind shelling out a couple of bucks to get that extra item. But I think for the more casual player, what isn't really immediately clear is that if you join the club, you get that last grayed out item immediately. The game is already designed to unlock that item once the club is joined, but the UI doesn't clearly indicate this. So I propose a tweak similar to the following... The Unlock button next to the item would function just like pressing the + button at the top navigation, but by putting it right below the item that can be unlocked, it would clearly indicate to the player the fact that they're getting this cool item they want NOW. This would lead to more people wanting to join the club, and as a result, more money for the CH team, which hopefully would translate into more awesome content!
I can second that most players don't realize they can get the item even at the point it drops... they think once they see it, it's too late.
I guess it could be changed to "Join Club now to get this" to be more explicit, but I personally had no problem understanding this:
That on hover text is great, but due to the location, it looks like something that's part of the item itself. It's also not clickable. Having a separate button below the item solves both of those issues.
