Doesn't seem like this thread needs a bump. o.o
Before this thread, I never knew there was such a complaint or split between players... Sure, I knew some people ebay their items/money, but there are people like that in every game, and the idea is so absurd to me I never really thought a lot of people (in GW) actually did it. I just assumed they were junkies and played way more hours than me, hehe.
I'm not sure about the 15k per week thing, but I don't avidly farm. Farming puts me to sleep (and farming parties can be oh so mean). Sometimes when I know I want 15k armor or something (that's usually where my money goes, then the runes and dye), I'll run a few routes, do some more quests, sell some stuff that might fetch at least a few hundred gold. I have some close friends in the game who can often help or donate some of the gold if I happen to come out short by my personal deadline. I don't sit in Droknar's or wherever and spam, "CAN ANYONE GIVE ME 1.7K GOLD?!" because that's just... no. Ask your friends, not strangers, sheesh. Sometimes I donate cheap materials to people... I'm sure other people do now and then.
I am a big fan of good greens (not greens with crappy stats). I buy the cheaper ones and often ask for help from friends to farm more expensive ones. I have a few golds with mediocre mods and less than perfect req.... but I wind up not using them as much as my greens (with the exception of my Assassin's oni daggers over Shiro's Blades). I never, ever go out of my way to buy golds (picked up a few gold swords back in Prophecies, kept ONE of them). My two pve casters do use collector items though... ;D They may have no market value, but collector items are great. I mod them with what I pick up or what my friends might throw my way (my tiny guild is small but close. We ask each other if we're interesting in loot before selling).
Looking at my characters, my two most "pimped out" characters are my warrior and necro, the two earliest characters who are both over a year old now. I worked hard on my warrior for a long time, and she has more greens than she needs, a gold fellblade, and two sets of 15k armor. I earned about half of her items myself and bought about half. So although I have never had over 200k in the bank at a time, my first character ever in GW values well over 400k. I take care of my newer characters, but I am proud of my warrior.
Normally, I don't have too much time to play.. and my luck really isn't that good. You should see me trying to salvage mods off items I pick up. Not pretty. But if there's anything to be learned from this, it's that just a couple hours a day farming or doing quests (in Factions, particularly) you've neglected before, you can easily make AT LEAST 1.5k and that's pretty good if you let it accumulate. Don't go around buying things without trying to farm it yourself, first. And don't be too picky about the golds you get. ;D My fellblade was cheap despite it's low req. because it had a 15<50 (under 50% health) mod and no one else was buyin' it. This means don't dismiss anything over a 9 req... I mean, why SHOULDN'T you already have 15-16 pts in your main attribute anyway? What, do you some of you wars run around with only a 7 in axe mastery?

Before max armor, don't buy armor at every post. In prophecies, I only bought armor in Ascalon, Yak's Bend, and Ventari's Sell... before I got to Droknar's. In Factions, I guess this wasn't applied as much 'cause you only go through Shing Jea before max armor on the mainland...
Selling takes more than a few hours. It takes freaking days or weeks. Be patient and everything will pay off.