anybody give some advice on how they tend to gear new teams? Since i am mostly doing rifts and IA's.. and kinda avoiding dungeons/hard questing.. Would crafting my 5x clerics be the best route? (not really explored the crafting system in rift yet).. or is the crafting gear at lower levels going to gimp me?

What about all that planarite i am getting? can that be used to buy good lower level gear?