Hey ClockWise,
sorry for the delayed answer.
No, you cannot open a V2 project in a V1 of articy:draft, since there are different handlings and features as you can see here:
http://www.nevigo.com/en/articydraft/versions/ After your trial none of your content is getting lost. Of course you can open it with a version that equals the used revision number (or higher) but, yes. If the trial is over, you'll get a message and
cannot work with it. That's the idea of the trial version
But actually you don't necessarly need to spend the 198€ at once. What you can do (eg. if you think of buying articy:draft on Steam) is to first buy the a:d version1 and work with it. Afterwards you can
upgrade easily on the version 2 ... your project will be converted automaticly. And once your game is finished and you're going to sell it, you can upgrade to the commercial version. That was our idea
behind the Steam version to give you the most flexible license system. BUT... and this is the new thing. You can contact our sales-team and ask for further buying options. I'm sure you'll find a way
I hope this helps a bit, and sorry once more for the late respond.
Cheers,
-Martin