If I were to hire a druid to PL me...
 

...how many hours would it take for a lv1 Bard to reach lv30?

I can afford maybe 6 hours.

I would go to the EC tunnel and get DS and buffs and get to level 10 to save you some plat. 6 hours would be pushing it to start at level 1. You have to figure there are no hell levels till level 30. If you average 3% per kill that is 35 a level times 30 = over 1000 mobs you have to kill. Not counting travel time and buffs. Hard to do in 6 hours. You really can't PL for 6 hours straight. Your will be wore out as the Pl'er. It is a lot of work to PL.

For a bard, I would strongly suggest that you stop at around lvl 19 if you're looking to save cash. Then start practicing aoe kiting. once you're 32 and in OT, you'll be doing 1 pull a level

Three hours to level 18, then PL yourself to thirty in another five or six hours. Seriously, my first kite as an 18 bard in EK dinged me halfway through 20. Totally agree you shouldn't pay for a PL after 18.

And EK pales in comparison to the monster kites of OT, in fact as a lvl 30 Bard you can plvl other people in OT faster than a Druid could (assuming you're good at kiting).

Swarm kiting, that just blows me away as a shaman. One of the main reasons I would want to try bard. Huge circles, masses of death, heavenly melodies ensuing demise.

Bards in OT are commonly asking for rezzes - just make sure your connection is as stable as it can be.

All the usual BS, don't play on a wireless connection unless you're forced to, shut down any browser windows, turn off your torrents/downloads. Do what you can to keep the lag spikes down :)

Also a guise of the deciever from Lower Guk is a bonus for OT isn't it?

Yea, if you go DE illusion and are apprehensive can sell in outpost.

After too much trial and error the last couple of days I finally figured out how to pull all of OT without a deadly amount of mob lag. But I'm pretty sure it was because of my puny 256mb video card.

Kind of reminds me of another point. Some people experience a moment's lag when someone zones in (4 choices there).

Don't play on a calculator!