The Economy of WoW

[Malakar]

Was the economy at or near a state of ruin and did the offering of expensive yet useless buffs save the economy?
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In general it was the best economy I've seen. It had its flaws, mainly due to certain items not being upgradable while not being sold by vendors for a set price. But it was pretty darn stable during normal game flow. Certain events skewed it, but that's beside the point.

What did the people who bought those buffs give up to buy them?

Some players would give up certain nicety items like Cloaks of Invisibility, others opted to instead save up more cash and buy the items as an addition.

What percentage of the people bought into the scam and what did the rest of the people do with their money?

I would say approximately 9/10 bought into it. Seeing as how the other stuff to spend your money on didn't really improve your character, even the nominal gains were attractive to most players. And like I said, almost all players *believed* the upgrades did more than they actually did, just because they put so much time into it.

If the problem of inflation making it impossible for low level characters to buy their own gear isn't solved by exponential cost goodies, then just *what* problem is solved?

What is solved is soaking up *most* of the high level players' gold. It's not a one-time sink, and it's not negative, so it's an attractive long-term gold sink. It solves the problem of high level players having 9000 gold with nothing to do with it. But it does not solve the problem of high level players income being 10x higher than low level players, giving them the ability to easily make more money on a whim to buy low level gear for new characters at inflated prices.

To keep the low level items from being inflated, have them available from vendors. But then the mid level items get inflated. Same solution? Then the high level items become inflated. Do it again? Then you've fixed the economy by abolishing it.

I'm not really following what you're trying to say here. Could you explain this in more detail please?