[myxomatosii]

I'll try to express this visually.

On EQ Live in 99 I think it used to be like this.

1 Poor
5 Poor
10 Poor
15 Poor
20 Poor
25 Poor
30 Poor
35 Decent
40 Decent
45 Decent
50 Decent
55 Decent
60 Decent
60 Decent
60 Good
60 Good
60 Good
60 Good
60 Good
60 Leet

On P99 its more like this. The jumps can vary but with handouts and cheap over-farmed gear I think this is a good estimate.

1 Poor
5 Poor
10 Decent
15 Decent
20 Decent
25 Decent
30 Good
35 Good
40 Good
45 Good
50 Good
55 Leet
60 Leet
60 Leet
60 Godleet
60 Godleet
60 Insanely Godleet Plat-rain
60 Insanely Godleet Plat-rain
60 Insanely Godleet Plat-rain
60 Insanely Godleet Plat-rain

So instead of being poor, you're actually middle class, and middle class before you would've been on EQ Live. Take for example my 54 monk on live, he never had a Wu's Trance Stick leveling up even in CoM. Now its rare to see a level 6 monk without a Wu's Trance Stick in FoB because you can pick them up for near nothing in EC. Also you are comparing yourself to people with nearly one of each class at 60. Its quite difficult to obtain various 60s without gaining quite a bit of money along the way in drops and such. So while your bar for yourself is higher, the bar you are trying to attain has also increased leading to the illusion of being poor.

My two coppers.