Why are characters so cheap?

[Troy]

Is it just me or does it seem like a ~50 char with planar gear and likely >5 days /played should be worth more than 25-50k? Any lvl 50 could make way way more plat than that if (s)he farmed for that long.

or is there just some magic way to level to 50 in less than 1 day /played that people are exploiting to level chars for sale purposes, thus pushing down the prices?