Being a long time warcraft player (WC 1,2,3 and now WoW) I'm a lot more into the story and the lore. I play a lot, but I'm not very hadrcore about it (I don't feel the need to run high end stuff). Most of my characters are on Korialstratz. Initially I had 3 characters that I more or less kept at the same level. Then about two months ago I decided to work on getting my Hunter to Outland. I also did a lot of PvP at level 49 with my hunter and got some really great reward gear that served me really well until I got to Outland.
Currently my three main toons are:
62 Night Elf Hunter
49 Human Mage
44 Dwarf Warrior
There was some nice synergy with these three because the dwarf could make blacksmithing items for the mage and hunter, all the cloth not needed for leveling first aid was sent to the mage, all the gems and pearls went to the dwarf and the hunter would make armor kits for everybody.
Later I though it would be nice to have someone to make potions so I rolled a priest that did herb gathering and Alchemy.
I have also run some Horde toons, more just to experience that side of things
and some of the other classes too.
Undead Warlock
Tauren Druid
Orc Hunter
that are in the teens level wise. On my server it's a lot harder to find groups on the horde side.
Getting on to your post, I wouldn't worry about not having Epics. You either need to grind instances, grind PvP, or just get a lucky drop.
Money is also a factor that can also come down to luck. If you get a couple of blue drops that you can't use and sell them on the Auction house for 10's of gold (100 or more for some epics), which in the 30's and 40's levels is a big deal.
Trade skills can also be a factor in money. My earlier characters had a much harder time because they sunk so much money into their crafting trades. My mage has enchanting, which is insanely expensive to gain skill in, but now that it's up there in levels, she disenchants the green or blue items the others don't need and sends the powders and shards back so they can be sold on the Auction house. Powders and shards always sell unless the prices are totally out of wack and there's no listing fees on the AH for dusts and shards.
My hunter is level 62 and still doesn't have her epic mount, so don't feel bad (pre-Burning Crusade expansion when there was no place to go after 60, you would get money instead of experience).
I can see why some people were upset that all of their high end lvl 60 stuff was equaled by low level Outland greens. But they should remember that they were working on getting the best stuff available
at that time. Now there's a whole bunch of high end level 70 gear to shoot for. Looking back at some of the level 60 quests, they just seem insane (gather 40 people and run instances many times until you get a chance at one piece of Epic armor for a set of 8 pieces).
If it wasn't fun then yes, you did the right thing to quit, it is after all, a game meant to be fun. If you ever do get back into it, try a totally different class/race. I hear the new starting areas (Blood Elf, Dranei) are much improved over the original starting areas.
I used to play WoW. I hit 60 on a Night Elf Rogue in about 5 months of play back in the day (last year). Hitting 40 in a month is pretty impressive. Please tell me you aren't playing hours a day... Because I was and it took me that long to hit 60. And when I hit 60, I didn't have much gold at all, so I never got an epic mount.
I bought a collector's edition of the expansion and 60 day prepaid card, ready to go when I was done with school, but after trying the trial for Burning Crusade, I quit. Being a gamer, I had stocked up on plenty of console games, and I wasn't looking forward to level another 10 levels (that was probably the easy part), joining a new guild for raids (always difficult), or even considering rolling a new alt (too much time). So, I sold off the card, and I am hoping the collector's edition will go back up in price on eBay, soon.
I've always had money problems and getting epics in WoW. I didn't have many blues. Not a single epic in my life. I felt like all of that gear I got pre-expansion went to waste too quickly. They probably should've made the expansion require some of the old gear so that the old dungeons don't go to waste. When I was at 60, I was still riding on my non-epic Nightsaber. All the other rogues laughed at me...
The game requires too much of my time for a not very rewarding experience. That's what I realized and why I finally quit.
WoW was fun while it lasted.
