you cant judge the economy by the beta. people were stuck on L20 and then L30 and are doing upgrades that most will not bother to do in live servers because you can get better items just 3-4 levels up by questing. I myself spent around 3 gold for upgrades at level 20 that were replaced by level 24, and gold is not important in beta but in live everyone will save that for their mount at L40 instead of an upgrade for 3-4 levels.