You won't be getting that; not a professional game studio, anyway.
Pros gotta start somewhere. Ever occur to you that while for now this is an amateur, volunteer effort, it has every possibility of becoming more if the deal should go thru?
The difference here is practice, an acknowledgement, and a paycheck. She's getting the first, the second will come, and the third with the deal and success.
I have faith in her.
Now, as for where is the line between 1.5 and 2? I'd look to Everquest and Everquest 2 for inspiration on where to draw the line. Everquest got an engine upgrade with Shadows of Luclin, its third expansion. Still the same game, just using more advanced shaders and DX9.0c. Same characters, same mechanics, same starting point and lore/progression, just shinier.
Everquest 2 is a different graphics engine, different mechanics, different characters and classes, entirely different starting point and progression, only partially shared lore.
From everything you've told us so far, ARP is going to be akin to the upgrades EQ got, or WoW will be getting with Warlords of Draenor. Same story, same powersets and mechanics, as closely as possible. Same lore, same starting point, same progression. Merely new, shinier graphics engine to take advantage of advances in hardware and software and continue the story on a clean, supported, and well understood codebase.
IMO CoH 1.5 is appropriate, and that's certainly not intended as an insult!