those were the days...
I still remeber getting my first rare! (which wasn't labelled any differently from normal mats...) a blackened iron cluster!!! Then I sold that fucker for ONE GOLD! HELL YA! I was rolling in the dough for a while after that bad boy sold (this was back when rares were actually RARE, taking days to find ONE, not a stack)
armor quests were the SHIT! Everyone was doing them...and I agree there was such life and fun from the mysteries of EQ2 back in the day...
I remeber when I used to run my zerk to nek forest so my inquis could trade him all the Freeport only furniture he had bought and I dominated the furniture market with the Freeport Wooden Counter iirc. Shared banks you say? Fuck that we didn't even HAVE shared did we? I know for the longest time it was Good only or evil only anyways... And I will never forget class/subclasses....I really liked that aspect..

my first character EVER was a mage->summoner, not a necro, not a conjy, a SUMMONER
and crafting was my favorite back then...we had it all planned out...