"Also skill percentages matter less at hero than they do at low levels, imho. "

smooth purple crack?

"Gear disparity. Gear is more important at lowbie than hero, again imho. A sweet set at lowbie is much harder to overcome than at hero, or so I have always found."

More crack?

as for skills mattering less at hero... they matter several times more at hero simply because the pool of people your fighting against is likely to have higher skill percents. If you land one in three commands and I land one in two I have a big advantage over you straight up, thats why its easy to be beefy at low ranks if you spend time spamming because you prey on the people who statistically are going to have a lot more skill failure then you.

As for gear the lowbie gear hog is mitigated by the fact that lower skill percents mean you can die an ugly out of the blue death (this is magnified by the generally lower hp totals meaning mistakes can cost you more since you have less time to recover).

I agree though that for me the game doesn't really start until the mid 30's before that your stuck roleplaying with trees and rocks without the skills to really DO things.