they were scarce and the collection value is maintained.

The old cards ARE scarce, we just don't have a critical number of collectors to buy them from the market to hold them for value. In this play to earn environment, people buy the cards mostly to play with them, and others to earn rental value. But we definitely don't have very many players that are going in and buying thousand dollar cards for their collection. Maybe during the last bull run, but not now!

The way I think that the economy would flow

This thinking is flawed in my opinion because it purely depends on whether OGs who eventually sell their expensive cards to newer players will be willing to continue investing in and buying new editions from the company. In this model, the secondary wild market directly competes with the capital coming in from new players, who in my opinion will want to compete for the bigger rewards. Why would I ever want to buy new cards if the old ones earn me more rewards? How will the game stay accessible if the old cards are worth crazy amounts?

Bottom line is that the Company/DAO needs to constantly sell new packs to support the future of the game. This is best accomplished by providing the best rewards to the Modern format where the newest cards are most relevant. Without the constant demand for new cards, I'm not sure there will be servers running to support the old cards.