The worst part about opera dying was the email client imnho - and it wasn't trivial to find a replacement.
I'm not sure what I'd seek in a browser I'd pay for - but it would be features not present or great in foss browsers.
Maybe email, podcast, rss client, a modal vi like browsing (like vimperator, but first class), a good reader mode/style override, proper editor for text input (like "it's all text"), automatic force support for select text, save as... for images)...
But whatever would be useful enough to pay for, would likely be a pain to lose.