I strongly disagree with this. I played for about 200 hours before finally giving up in frustration. On my first characters play though, I vowed never to use either of the Auction halls. It was an exercise in frustration. The first dozen or so levels were fine and then it started getting more and more difficult. By the time I was in my 40's I still had item level 8-14 items on my character and nothing above level 25. Everything was slow and difficult. I finally decided I was either going to have to use the AH or quit the game in frustration. I started buying stuff off the Gold AH "just the one time to get me back up to par" and started playing again and having fun. 10 levels or so later and I was back in the same boat. I had gotten perhaps 1 or two upgrades other than that I still was wearing all the same equipment I had bought on the AH 10-12 levels earlier. After that, I waved the white flag and just started buying off the AH.
The Game is (or at least was, I haven't played in a year at least) designed pretty much requiring you to use the AH to continue to level up. They even managed to get a little cash off me in the Real Money Auction Hall before I came to my senses and quit the game. In my opinion the game was designed from the start to work like the "free to play" games. Where sure you can play for free, but if you want to not grind endlessly just stop by our trusty AH and buy a few goodies to make the game even better.
For me at least, it took away the whole reason I played. Cool loot drops. I got no enjoyment at all grinding for gold and buying what I wanted off the AH.