Yeah, haste is a pretty big deal. When you hit 25, go group in the HHK goblin group. Sell ore and bronze armor to the vendor and goblin ears to players for 25p each. Stay there from 25-35 and walk out several thousand plat richer. That should get you enough for a haste item (handwraps, as nycon mentioned, are probably most bang for your buck) and some upgraded weapons. For mainhand weapons, go for the highest dmg piercer you can afford as that will directly impact your BS dmg. Offhand aim for good ratio. After that you can work on armor.
TBH you can get by with the chokidai prod for a while. 11dmg isn't bad. Usually the best you'll have before epic is 13dmg MH.
Some fairly inexpensive mainhand weapons include:
Crystalline Spear 13/30
Rapier of Oriin 12/25
Serpent's Tooth 13/27
Small Dragonbone Shard 13/26 (race restrictions may be relevant)
I won't link offhands because there are tons of them you can choose. Primary is of course restricted to piercers for backstab, but offhand can be piercing, slashing, or blunt. Anything near to or better than a 1:2 ratio should be your initial goal.
As far as gearing, chain with str and/or hp should do you well for leveling. You can find a lot of decent stuff in the 100-300p price range for each slot.
A few cheap pieces with decent stats include:
Brigandine Tunic
Hero Bracers (confirm it's usable by your race)
Orc Fang Earring
Various Ry'gorr chain for passable stats + velious graphic fashion
HP rings or Velium Fire for the 65hp rings, though they are about double the price.
There are a lot of items out there. Hang out in EC tunnel and watch the scroll and write down a list within your targeted budged. Slowly save and buy the items as you can afford them. Nice thing about rogues is all their money can go to gear upgrades since you don't have to buy sets of spells every 4-5 levels.