The biggest factors to the high price of high-end items on this server:
- High average player level
- Slow progression
- Increased game knowledge
They combine to allow the high level players to farm immense amounts of raw PP (and items) while item power decreases slower due to the slow progression schedule. When raw PP on the server increases, but the items to spend it on stay stagnate for long periods, you get inflation. There are also virtually zero raw PP dumps on this server to take money out of the economy (no casino, no high priced mounts, etc).
The good news is that this makes the mid-tier items undervalued! Because everyone has the best, no one needs the mid-tier. The L30s quest armor is undervalued, hybrid Kunark armor is undervalued, mid-grade weapons are undervalued because the market is that much smaller. Yes, you are going to have to pay for BIS, but 80% of BIS is not 80% of the price, and should work for most players.