Well, why should the gear be many times more powerful if they can have the same gear? Yes, you can outbid a non-paying player at auction for a rare item, but first, someone has to drop that item and put it up for auction. There are also no problems with the level if you fight against players of the same development level in PvP, and not against green newbies. You will simply join a group with high-level players faster, but you will be on equal footing with them.
Of course, it depends on how this content is implemented. If a player buys armor with a 0.01% drop rate for real money, then that's not nice. But Ment means a normal implementation of the system.