When I started the community did seem to be in a better state than it does now, people complained about loot but not to the current levels.
Part of it is that once you get to certain level your stuck unless you increase your spending, before you could keep going on small deposits but still reach uber due to the close to linear skill gains we had back then. Gradually though we've seen the screw tighten on our costs and I think it's leading to burn out of players at a much quicker rate. The complaining about the ATH's and loot is getting worse, not only the level but the boring items in it but we're seeing little effort from MA / FPC to fix it other than to keep giving us CE2 teasers and the promise of a new golden age.
I thinkt he biggest problem is that people upgrade to fast and want to much.
I have a friend who has rather much more skills than me, he almost stopped playing completly due to high losses.. He easily looses 2-5k ped in just a couple of days or a day even..
Meanwhile, i havent deposited for several months and im still playing every day.. It all has to do with adapting to your skill-level and taking the time thats necessary before an upgrade.
If you are like me and have ~150k skills, you arent supposed to hunt on CP, Scipulors, Hogglo, SEG or whatever that could be regarded ATH mobs.. I would even say that you should stay as far away from Atrox thats humanly possible.
Drones and Argonauts.. Low armor, some fap thats adjusted to your skills (not an adj. fap), good weapon (P5, HL6, HL8, Korss).
Rince and repeast, over and over and over and over and over again.
By doing this, you will not lose massive ammounts of cash,.. most likely you lose little, perhaps break even, perhaps even profit.
The big problem is, noone is arsed to do it.. I really struggled to get through my 100 X Argonaut project and afterwards i've been bouncing around bigger mobs for a while, just to have fun.. and with that came the losses wich are aprox. 1000 ped on 1.5 week..
So, guess what, im going back to drone/argos again, because im prepaired to put down the time thats necessary to keep playing on a minimum budget.. because thats whats gonna make me succesfull in the end. Beeing able to play on a small budget and the day i hit the big one (if i do) i will be able to upgrade skills, gear etc to become even more efficient..
Rince and repeat...
The difference between me and ubers are that their mobs are not argonauts and drones, they can farm bigger mobs efficiently.
So next time someone whines about loosing to much cash, you should ask them.. "Are you playing at your level?" and i bet that 99.9% of the people who say "YES" on this question are not true.