Firefall

They must have increased it to 7.5k, cause that's what my Rhino frame cost me.

As for what Corn means, he probably hit the same bug I did during the tutorial. The game bugged out and bought me all the items, but never officially registered the frame to the UI. As a result, I had everything the T1 Recon frame had, I had lost my Crystite, however I could not actually activate the frame and I was essentially out of 1k Crystite and had junk in my inventory.

Hm. It was 7,000 before. After you purchased the Tier 2 frame for 7,500 Crystite, did you go to the Battleframe Station?
All tier 2 frames have the same equipment as tier 1. Basically you're weaker than a maxed tier 1 frame unless you gradually unlock new equipment and better abilities in tier 2. Crafting is also available starting in tier 2.
This is bad progression and it is acknowledged by Red5. They're going to fix it.

The devs are back in business today at the office so I'm hoping for an update soon of what they are working on.