I agree with SpIke, its the equipment that is the problem. There are waaay to many event items out at the moment. I know most players with an event item will disagree with this, but there is. If there were just a few, say 1 of each type of items and maybe 2-3 ID/FID, they would be much more highly valued. Also, random alchemy caused problems with items...
I don't really like prepping weapons that much either, as it makes it far too easy to kill monsters and most of them are no longer a challenge for players, sort of wrong in a meant-to-be-RPG. There should always be monsters that players cant take on on their own.
Also, the economy has crashed and plat is hardly worth anything now.
I hate to admit it, but, a server restart would be the best thing
I know plenty of people who would come back if there was a restart...
Perhaps we could sort of copy the server and then reset it, so on one server youre whatever level you are with all your leet items etc, and on the other youve just started. I think this is what they are planning to do eventually.