It's a different kind of experience than what you've talked about due to the self-sufficiency of the class.
But a few years ago I started a Druid on Green and didn't buy a single piece of gear from another player til like level 40. I replaced all the decaying skeleton dropped cloth by like lvl 6 or 7 with vendor purchased regular leather armor.
Then by level 30 or so I was able to upgrade that to, I believe it's called Mesh armor? If not Mesh, its the same tier, dropped by frogloks in guk. Which is if I'm not mistaken identical in AC and appearance to basic leather but weighs nothing (or almost nothing!)
I also used the wiki to find ways to obtain gear on my own (+3 wis shoulders from crushbone-- prayer cloth of tunare, testament of vanear quest for offhand-- using track to find the reed belt out of dagnors etc); even found camps like shralok pack, travelers pack etc to get myself some decent weight reduction gear.
The self found aspect really gives you an appreciation for even VERY minor up grades (a la the reduced weight mesh armor from guk.) It also leaves you something to look forward to once you get high level-- leaves some carrot on the stick, if you will.
I think I shifted gears at like 48 or 50 and ended up gearing the druid. But it was a TON of fun getting there. There are several approaches to soloing various camps. And while not highly sought after for groups, , it's very possible to form a group by sending tells to players in appropriate level ranges. Especially once you can port to pick them up
Getting around via ports is easy once you gain access to them. You get invis, buffs, heals, nukes, dots, roots snares.
So basically the experience is one of figuring out how to use your class toolkit to overcome various challenges to do a (mostly) solo run, as well as a self-found ruleset, made a little less stressful by the fact that you're playing a nearly totally self sufficient class
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