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Oh wow, that is a hefty gold loss to absorb. O.o

I guess losing components would end a business partnership in a hurry. ^^; Still, I'm glad it worked out in the end.
Haha, I'm flattered that you found me inspirational! ^///^ I think Checkmate did it best, tbh. Her thread is so neat and pretty. Mine is pretty much just bare bones. I borrowed heavily from her setup after my first project, though. I was overly ambitious when I tried to put those pretty icons next to all the components. xP

Ohgawd yes I know! I don't know how people can get from level 1 to 10 in like 3 days now. I mean, I guess caches are more readily available...With a bit of research, they can theoretically do it. It's just...much more likely that they're recklessly buying rare components to speed through. Or using GC to buy those exp bundles. I think it takes about $400 to buy your way to level 10, so...><;;;

I don't think Alchemy had nearly as many "hit and run"s back then as it does now. There were always some, but they never bothered to set up a service thread. Instead, they were usually the ones who start the "Alchemy is too expensive!" threads 'cause they look at the 99 GC RIG formulas and then quit without researching more. I've always thought that the Alchemy choke points were levels 3 and 5 because they were the first times you run into a situation where there are very few cache-only formulas. If someone can figure their way out through those levels, then I consider them a serious Alchemist. Even though level 9 is probably the most costly level by far, once you get that close, you just can't stop until 10. xD
Nowadays, though...I really think that people are just plowing through the choke points by buying whatever with their massive mountains of gold. I don't know if they're even opening their own caches anymore. I mean, I sold a 100x stack of Licorice for 60k a piece. That would've never worked when I was leveling up...I tried. >.>;