OK, had to double check to make sure I was reading the poster name correctly lol, as I thought you were Marco.
Pt#1: How exactly do you fix this, and again I ask, what is a "level playing field"? I come from a monthly/subscription model MMO back ground. Even with Absolutely No RMTs, there is still no level playing field. Someone who plays 60-80 hours a week will simply be more powerful than someone who plays 6-8 hours a week; and IMO as it should be.
In short: you can't fix Lux. It is what it is. But the ability of new/low level players with a couple of iTunes giftcards to by 1600 plat and turn it into half a million gold in a day and still factors heavily into the state of the game.
Pt#2: I will hazard a guess at this point that you haven't been a low level/new player in a while. Either that, or the magnitude of change you're talking about is Much bigger than what I'm thinking. Without a friend who loaned me 70K to help by my first lux (heroic ammy), and a great clan that geared me with most of the Warden stuff, those eyes in OW would have been Much Much harder for my ranger (first one to get there) than it is for my mage (2nd), who now has the "backing" of said ranger. If it's an issue of magnitude, then I go back to the issue of "not what's wrong with the game, but of a totally different game". I simply don't believe CH, as it is without a Major revision, cannot support a more group centric play style. I shudder to think of the hours wasted shouting just to get in a group just so I can level. Can't do that if I'm logging on for 20 mins for a quick play.
I don't think the magnitude of change needed is nearly as large as you think I think we need. I'm actually advocating only a subtle shift in difficulty to bring killing pace in line with DPS druids and mages. I'm talking long term rates like mobs per hour, not per kill. It's pretty frustrating to be grinding away killing a mob with my low DPS, and a rogue/DPS war/Ranger runs by and kills 3 of the same mob in the time it took me to kill one, then tap recup and first aid, and be back in business in 30 secs. Where's his incentive to do anything but solo, or if he does, he finds another DPS? Caster classes may have great burst DPS, but after a few kills, they gotta rest and refill that huge energy pool. This slows their overall mobs per hour rate. I just don't see the equivalent in the physical attack based classes. They just keep banging away.
I too, played the original EQ, and while I loved how hard it was then, as a college freshmen, in 1999, I don't want a group-only mentality now. I like being able to play for 15 or 20 minutes and make some progress. But in 20 minutes, some people will kill 6 mobs, and some will kill 30. And it all comes back to the triad: melee-based lux, low enemy difficulty, and low enemy volume.
Alot of people are going to scream that I want a nerf to DPS classes. I don't. I DON'T. I just want to feel like I'm not being punished because I chose a support class that doesn't shine until level 120. That's a long, lonely road. Ask any Druid.
In a nutshell, I bang my head against a wall, painfully grinding out solo exp because any DPS class in decent gear can sustainability kill mobs, at 3x my pace, with only the skills they have. Add in some lux gear and they lay waste to large swaths of an area. They don't need my help to maintain a killing pace. Support classes are unneeded in typical training groups. Lux items are invaluable for boss fights, but a Scavenger Lux caster offhand doesn't increase my mobs per hour like a golden blade of Ice does for a warrior.
The irony is that unless your clan is supportive and actively invites the mages and druids to ride the group exp wave, you have a pile of level 140 warriors and rogues, standing around a boss wondering why all the supports are lvl 100 (or lower! or switched to DPS classes!)
As far as level playing field, I mean that in a pay-to-play game, you can't 'buy your way to the top'. Here, there is an ever-widening in-game economic gap, buying enough plat to become a superstar is well within the realm of possibility. These are the "Haves". Those people buy say 1600 plat ($50), turn it into 400k+ gold selling elixers and idols, buy Lux items and dominate the whole area to the detriment of those that could probably afford to spend $5 a month on a game, but won't wait nearly a year until they have $50 set aside for a stupid video game. These are the 'Have-Nots' and they'll never succeed to the degree of the Haves, because they simply don't have as much fun money. I'm not advocating the everybody wins mentality either. I'm simply saying that Lux items create a snow-ball effect that those without have great difficulty overcoming. That's not fun.
Whew.
