I just walked from Amnoon Oasis to Thirsty River, fought almost every mob in my path on the way, wound up with -29 DP which I got back to -9 by the time I arrived in Thirsty River.
My grand total amount of loot from that entire mission. (I'm not kidding)
1 gold wand. 10-19 damage, +3 energy, when hexed. (wooottt.....)
1 air wand. plain
1 double axe. plain
1 holy staff. plain
1 other type of axe (forgot the name, sorry). plain
approximately 300-500 gold. I'm not quite sure what I started out with, but it wasn't a whole lot, and I would up with 700 gold once I reached TR.
I'm pretty sure that almost half the monsters didn't drop anything (or at least, that got claimed by henchies), and I got a grand total of seven items. It just reached my second bar in my backpack. I found NO BLUES, NO PURPLES. Normally when I took an hour's trip, I'd at least find blues. 99.9999999% of those would be junk, but at least I found them. Now? Nada. Niente. Zip.
This trip took me about an hour, during which time I gained about 20% of XP to my next skill point.
Now, it is possible that I was supremely unlucky, but this kind of garbage should not be dropping in the Crystal Desert? PLAIN ITEMS???. From lvl 22 hydras, lvl 21(?) dune burrowers, lvl 20 minotaurs, lvl 20 jade scarabs etc???
So how is getting items now NOT grinding? I guess for PvP it doesn't matter, although every top level PvP'er I've talked to says that having items IS important for PvP, DESPITE what Anet says. (which is not that hard to figure out. Would you rather fight someone with your +6 energy flame artifact, or your +27 energy holy artifact, +30 to health?
With the drop rates being this terribly lousy (I mean, come on, this is the crystal desert I'm talking about, not pre-searing ascalon. What is all this plain crap that keeps dropping???), how can anyone say that there is NO GRINDING? I guess nobody cares about finding cool items? Isn't that half the fun in a game such as this?
If they REALLY want to stop people from having to grind, UP THE DROP RATES.
It's simple. Anet is apparently annoyed at farmers and the prices they ask for items. Which is fine, I can totally understand that.
There are two ways to tackle this problem. Supply and Demand.
1) Deprive the farmers of their ability to farm and thus their ability to gain items. Lower Supply. This has the nasty side effect of annoying people since there doesn't seem to be dropping anything decent. Maybe it's just me.
2) Increase drop rates, thereby giving more people cool loot. This also lowers demand. Why would I pay some farmer 20K for an item, when I have a good chance of going out and finding something similar within an hour of walking around in the crystal desert? This has the added benefit of making people happy, since who doesn't like to find cool loot?
It seems to me, however, that Anet continuously choses to follow option number one, rather than option number 2. Nerfing farm areas, lowering drop rates, increasing monster difficulties (which is great fun if you're just trying to get somewhere, and get NINE freaking lvl 22 hydras on top of you out of nowhere...

My current character, I've been playing steadily for almost three weeks now. I have yet to find a single decent weapon for her (E/mo). The weapon I'm currently using, I bought for 3K. I've found a grand total of now five yellow weapons with her. The crap wand I mentioned above, three yellow hammers and one weapon that had no mods on it for some reason (this might have been a purple one, can't quite remember).
I must have logged about, I don't know, at least 50 or so hours with her. Nothing found.
I guess I'm just unlucky? Or is finding items just not what this game is all about?
Hey, I've enjoyed playing so far, but I fail to see many reasons to keep playing after I've finished the storyline (which is good btw). I just don't really enjoy PvP, so I'm not going to get into that. Besides, grinding to unlock your skills which you need for PvP isn't all that great either (Although I do think that the previous method of capturing Elites was more fun, rather than the assassination mission that it is now).
With no loot falling (for me anyways, don't know how it is for anyone else), I just don't see any point in continuing.
Now, a lot of you will say "STFU N00B! Glad to be rid of you", but you're ignoring the fact that Anet needs money from continuous sales of expansion packs in order to stay profitable. No Anet = No Guild Wars.
Every customer that walks away is 50 dollars less that Anet will be receiving.
Did I really just misunderstand what the game is all about (although every review I've read says that it has a "Great PvE part" and "tons of items to find" (yeah, tons of plain junk?).
I'm just really curious. I can't be THIS unlucky

Creston