Overall that is a good deal. Sometimes you have to buy from the vendor.
Ya, I would stay in Shale. I say that for a couple reasons:
1.) I made the mistake on my main of going into Stone at level 45 to solo boars. I guess I was also tired of Connachts, and wanted to move in with the big guys, but in hindsight, Shale would have been better. I could have made it to 55-60 faster, and would have had more gold.
2.) I have a level 48 secondary character, and he is staying in Shale. He is doing very well there. Good exp., good gold, and fast kills. I also do a quest with him there that gives good exp. (I'll get to that in a sec.)
3.) It will give you the chance to complete the Shale quests (Defector, Luther), which will give exp., gold, and items. I left Shale early, and finished the Defector quest at level 98... useless at that point.
Can you fast travel or do you farm leystone frags? If so, the quest I mentioned in number 2 is the tavern pie quest. Might not be worth the time if you have to run back and forth from the tavern, but if you can fast travel, that quest is great. The Connacht food tasters you need to kill spawn in the area you are fighting (so you kill normal mobs, and a taster when it spawn). You will get around 6000 exp and a HP increasing pie for completing the quest. Use the pies when you team with a Druid.
All in all, Shale is good, I think. You should get good exp and gold from Connachts you around your level. For exp you can kill the odd Horse as well. They should give you around 1500 exp, but they don't drop anything. For extra gold, you can run through the lower camps (Ironspike, Gannon, and near Greygorge).
Do that for a couple days, sell the drops, then look at the gold on your stat page. I suspect you will be in better spirits than when you started this thread
ps - Grats on 50!