And on top of that, there aren't monumentally awesome items that drop off of fire beetles, or any of the other low lvl monsters.... If you look at the DnD core rulebooks for 3.0 or 3.5, the items are pretty much in line, and in some cases underpowered, when compared to an average PnP campaign.
If you don't like this styel of play, NEVER, go to NS3, let me tell you, its fast, furious, and I can get a lvl 30 in probably two days, with gleeming armor in one hour. NS4 is a real scale back from NS3's Ultra Power Gaming days.
And quite frankly, most the community likes the scale back in ultimo awesome-o power that was always rampant in NS3. Sure all the vets have nostalgia every once and a while to have YDB (really awesome sword from NS3) but ultimately NS4 has fondled a more community feel to the game.
Besides, what is the trade-off to leveling slower, with lamer weapons? Here is one thing EVERY game developer should understand as LAW: Players want to see bangs, flashes, whistles, and want the aura of coolness to permeate their characters. They want to fight to achieve that coolness, and struggle to have to maintain that coolness. If the characters don't feel like they are achieving this fast enough, they quickly become disenfranchized and stop playing the game.
That's simple. Although there are niche people that like to lvl slowly and so forth, that isn't the style of most PC games. Things are fast, furious, and the best games make up with depth, and storyline.
The things you are asking for are found more in PnP versions of the DnD universe, not in PC games.
Besides, I doubt you've reached the pinacle of playing this game, what char lvl are yOu? Im lvl 20, and I find lots of joy doing things in teh game. I have people that I help out, I defend my city, I talk to people, do some jousting once and a while, get items and lvl every now and then, and I still find this game fun.
I actually play at times, where I don't fight a single thing at all, just chat and help out new players with getting items, and finding things. I don't see how changing the exp ranges, or the magic content will solve this.
Also, I think another issue is that smart builds lvl faster than stupidly built characters.... and that upsets some people. For example, my Animal/Haste Cleric that i got to lvl 17 in two days. Now, that's hard to do on this server....most would call it powerlvling. What's wrong with this style though? I saw people rampaging NC and TC, so I built a character that, frankly, does rather well in PvP, and does a lot to add some RP elements to an unfinished game. Other people build their chars much the same way. Should this thinking be discouraged? no. Why? Because, out of the necessity of teh game, some will make strong characters, others will make bad characters. It took me 20 cleric builds from both NS3, NS4, and in my own custom mod, to figure out how to tool a cleric for perfect all round performance....now I'm being told that I should slow down my lvling and get less magic items.... thats not really fair, and its also not going to add to character development.
Also, lvling fast helps characters understand whe nthey have made a mistake in their character build. If it takes 5 days to get to lvl 5 with your character, you've got to go back to the drawing boards and rethink your char design. Simple as that. Making it so taht a person has to go LONGER to figure out their char design is no good, is simply enfuriating.
Finally, some may enjoy playing weeks just to hit lvl 2. But the vast majority of PC's would rather spend their time doing something more productive with their lives than spend 24 hours of their life killing rats, jut to hit lvl 2 in a month. I think we all know what you are trying to say, this game is fast paced, and you want it slowed down....but you're solving the problem is all wrong, you need to attack the root of the problem, and as of yet, fast paced gaming isn't a problem at all. Get to the root of this issue and explain to the community what an all ecompassing solution would be, because people are probably not desiring your solution, as of yet.
I've tried fire, i've tried faith, and i've tried force, all I have left is hope.
)
one of the most enjoyable aspects of NS is that it's malleable, instead of other servers where the DMs made their module, and then they run for the hills (*Cough* BoW *Cough*)
and that's not going to be an easy thing to rework.