I think this issue has more or less been resolved. At least one of the portals is public, which means players can enter the end at any time.
As for harvesting endstone; I think the plan is to add in a separate end dimension in the regen world, for people to discover and harvest endstone from. The one in the main world, from what I hear, will be reverted to normal, and used only for players to fight the dragon.
Honestly, I think the major concern wasn't the endstone as a resource itself. Not very many people actually wanted endstone, including myself. The issue was just the principle of locking off a world to all but a select few. Because most couldn't have it, they all wanted to have it. And now that it's open to the public, people suddenly don't want that endstone anymore.