From my experience, free stuff does not make guests to think better about the prices. Nobody book a place because they will be given chocolate, champane, wine or whatsoever.
Anyway, I usually give the guest some gift such as chocolate or leave 2 cans of beer in the fridge or sprinkler water and no more. It is just a way to warmly welcome the guest.
I think that, if a host offer too much free stuff, it sounds like if he was desperate in search of guest.
I just offer a good accomodation and accomplish with what I have promissed.
From my point of view, the first reason guests book a place is because of the location, and secondly considering interior comfort in the property. The price is important, because one can pay or not.
So, if you have good location and attract guest that are more focussed on cheap price, you will have a problem.
From my experience, I have notice that, If things are not doing well, sometimes the solution is not to lower the price. The solution is to better the accommodation and keep or raise the price.
The more you lower the price the more you will attract mean hosts that does not know what is good value for money. Some guests that pay low rate are never satisfied with the price, and they will never mark 5 stars in the price item. They are only focussed on low price and the cheapst things they can get. Some of them does not know what is good value for money.
As for the price suggestions:
If I was to follow all the Airbnb tips (price and discount suggestions) I would be all booked all the time and having my earnings lowerd till an unacceptable point ! Moreover, sooner or later I would be competing with the cheapest hostels (kind of 6 to 10 beds in the same room) in the city where my properties are located. So, I usually follow my intuition instead of accepting all Airbnb tips, and It seems to work at least to me.
Some Airbnb tips are fine or OK, others are not.
I think that, Airbnb should warn a guest that, when they think the price of the accommodation is not OK, they will not be able to book the same accommodation again.
Why? There are some guests that say the accommodation is good, has great location but mark 3 or 4 stars for the price.
If the guest can not gladly afford the accommodation, Airbnb in future should offer the guest cheaper accommodations instead of suggesting the property owner to lower its prices.
In addition (Edited)
What if Airbnb ask the guest to rate the fee guests pays for the service (13% for short stay).
Would Airbnb be willing to lower its fee if the guests think it is high? 🙂