I bought the Orbx mesh day one, well before the free one showed up.
Out of curiosity I tried the free version. It was of no comparison, for ME. Similar yes and if you don’t want to buy something, sure it’s great. But size is a huge difference… ~500mb (for Orbx) vs the ~3Gb for the free version. Also no terrain morphing in the orbx one and no FPS hit like I got from the free one. Another big plus for the Orbx mesh is I havent had any compatibility issues with ANY addon airports around the country, even the unregistered bush strips that aren’t placed by deafult (AI) in the sim. There has been no need to update anything after installing the Orbx stuff.
Plus, there seems to be less issues with some locations and certain mountins that the free one just doesn’t reproduce accurately (albeit, not many places at all, just noticeable after flying the Orbx mesh).
Overall, even with the similarities, I much prefer the Orbx approach to the mesh and, knowing they will eventually update with 1m data it was well worth the small amount of cash.
I would do some comparisons, but I have deleted all the files for the free mesh and don’t plan on redownloading them… Sorry! 
P.s. those screenshots look absolutely phenomenal! Top work mate!