Mercenaries

Mercs seem like a good idea and a good plat sink to get money out of the economy.
If you think that things are too easy leveling up, then fine...instead of killing Runnyeye at level 40 solo, how about go into Klak'Anon instead. Instead of Sebilis, go do the Hole. Etc, etc. Try some harder content. Find stuff that is a challenge. Velious is great, imho, you can have reasonably easy or extremely challenging stuff. Older expansion content gets easier as time goes on, this happens *in every MMO*! This is normal. I don't see any complaints that current velious x4 raids are too easy, that x4 hard modes are too easy, that TOFS is too easy, that drunder and kael are too easy, etc. Usually the complaints is that they are too hard (which really means they are a challenge like they should be, which makes the game more fun, usually).