How else are we to get gold for the mass of hammers and pots you need to raid end game? Having to wait for a sale, just to sell a piece that you farmed from an instance is just sad...
Selling unlooted items seems to have tailed off over the past year - not just on US, but on EU servers too.
However, I believe the "mass of hammers and pots" has only become necessary because endgame players stat & tier their gear to such a level that instances become easier than they were intended so Runewaker needs to make the next one tougher still.
I'm not saying instances should be easy - far from it, they should be hard.
However, I also believe they should be possible without hammers & potions and that they are merely to assist people who don't quite meet the requirements for an instance to participate.
Basically, by making our gear T7 and our weapons T11, we are making it clear that we have loads of money and Runewaker will then happily increase the difficulty of the next instance to such that T8 & T12 would be required.
Anyone remember when a T6 weapon was badass?