I know people we hate me for this, but they need more costmetic things that are actually worth buying, right now imo there is only the shield. And otherwise they wont get any more money from us casuals with new payment model.
So how I suggest doing this is you have to pay to unlock the cosmetic power of each wood/stone/thatch material when constructing, otherwise its just plain old ugly vanilla. You pay $4 and now when you build anything with cherrywood it looks pink instead of vanilla brown.
So one guy could build all houses in your village but if you want them to all be different colours he would have to spent alot.