TBTH - when it comes to gear I actually don't replace - or repair (yes, I wear broken items) - anything till the endgame - sell everything and save all the coinage for buying final adp3s, final adorns and bit'n'pieces - and yes, that means I tend to have the same crappy lvl 20ish gear on all the way AND use app1s... - the only exception is the tank who tends to be in whatever it finds as opposed to buying anything (sell all masters)

The reason I can do this is pretty simple, old worlds are pretty basic and as I run a group of 6, I just cream stuff before they even get a hit in most times. Once at the level cap, RoK quests tend to give some 'ok' gear which is good enough till replacement shard gear can be bought

As a simple example, I just filled out last weekish my third and final team - I have been running the 'basic' TSO dungeons with 5 guys in RoK quested gear with a tank in T1 (since been upgraded - honestly doesn't take long) - so simple scion of ice, bonus shards in ana and cru + simple DF + simple CoTA and HoF - that gets about 4-6ish shards a day depending on the quest - so it is very doable - you just have to pick n choose

...and of course, if you happen to have other fully kitted T2/fabled teams pillaging TSO after you finish playing with your new guys, well then the shards just roll in...so give it a week or two and gear is not a problem as you'll be in T2 in no time at all