As a new player, I really liked the AH: Every single thing that dropped for me was either completely useless, or orders of magnitude worse than what people were throwing away on the AH for a pittance. (Sub-optimal stats went for cheap.) So, I could basically always find something that would be a significant upgrade every few levels.
If I had actually been seeing drops that were any good (due to a non-depressed drop rate), I'd have not felt the need for it ... but using the AH basically quadrupled my character's effectiveness. Using it was definitely part of "playing the game".
It made leveling great: You can freely vendor/DE almost everything you pick up if you want, and use the cash to buy things on the AH. Profit! At the end game, though, I can absolutely understand why that would kill the fun.
If I had actually been seeing drops that were any good (due to a non-depressed drop rate), I'd have not felt the need for it ... but using the AH basically quadrupled my character's effectiveness. Using it was definitely part of "playing the game".
It made leveling great: You can freely vendor/DE almost everything you pick up if you want, and use the cash to buy things on the AH. Profit! At the end game, though, I can absolutely understand why that would kill the fun.