[Reubin]

Bear in mind that everyone who plays on this server was in pretty much the same boat as you are now with their first char. I still had many pieces of Raw Silk on my Wizard when he hit 50. I remember replacing one of his raw silk wrist bands with a Carmine Trinket from PoF. I started fairly early on live and it was the same way there. Everyone got to high 30s to low 40s in Silk, Leather, Ringmail, or Bronze for the most part. Then you started questing your own Sol Ro armor (and some people were 50 before the Sol Ro armor quests were even implemented in the game). I remember very well when FBRs were going for 500pp and hardly anyone had that kind of money. When I was leveling I don't remember there being an abundance of good cheap gear. You either had to camp the stuff you wanted or you had to know how to farm plat. Unfortunately this is really tough for Monks.

So you might not get a whole lot of sympathy about your plight since everyone was untwinked at some point. The only difference is that now there are a lot of twinks running around to make all the new players feel inferior. But as long as they are willing to group with you, you're benefiting from their twinking too. In EQ levels are more important than gear for the most part. As long as you are able to get XP, the gear will eventually come.

Starting a Necro/Enchanter pair is a great idea if you're frustrated by being untwinked. You'll be able to level really well with very minimal gear. You'll also be able to farm platinum fairly well if you choose to.