Okay Champa and spoiler you need to stop assuming was talking about you...I could care less what you do with your AA...the people I'm tlaking about are the random dwarfs named djfhalsjfha who are allready selling over 3mil AA for 3A each...now I know some legit players are gunna have millions of AA because they play way too much but you cannot deny the fact most of the dwarfs with random names with millions of AA have botted to receieve it...once again don't assume I'm talking about you
Willy...the problem is that again, you've made some wildly broad generalizations about the community.
Some of the people you see in Giran selling AA or materials or gear are probably controlled by a 3rd party program.
Some of them are probably people that don't want to have their main doing the selling or people who have a 2nd or 3rd account specifically for sitting in town.
It's not all that uncommon.
I have 2 accounts. When I solo I drag the second along behind me. But when I'm partied I don't use a second account in most cases for two reasons. First, I think the spot should go to another player...it's only fair. And second, it takes too much work to control a spoiler and a healer in a large party and play the classes as well as they should be played...I can do it...but I don't enjoy it, and that's why you play video games (I hope).
So when I'm in said party I have a little dwarf that sits on the other account in Giran and sells this or that. Granted, he has a "normal" name. But my brother's dwarf that he uses at night or when he's at the movie or whatever looks something like: aweroi22aw ---- because the first 4 names he tried were taken.
Why would people use an untagged alt to sell stuff? Well I go out of my way to not shop at the shops set up by enemies to my clan...there isn't a reason to help them out, and I'm certainly not the only one to do it. You could argue that a main would have a good chance to sell to his OWN clan. But that isn't true either since most clannies are inclined to ask you for a break on the price when they know you're not afk.
I'm not picking on you Willy...I just REALLY wish that you would be a little more thoughtful about the things that you post.
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BACK ON TOPIC:
It isn't a simple yes or no. I've NEVER found upgrading D to C or low to mid grade or mid grade to high-mid was a good investment.
If you're farming AA anyway it is arguably a good idea to upgrade from lux C to top C or from shop D to top D.
The factors you need to consider are:
Am I paying for my AA or am I grinding it?
If I grind it, am I doing so with a group that is covering my shop and port costs, and if not could I buy AA cheap enough to make my time spent grinding more porfitable somewhere else?
Could I sell my AA for enough to pay for a new weapon outright, or to cover the material costs needed to upgrade if I sold my current weapon?
How long am I willing to go without a weapon (if you sell your current one and your AA to pay for the crafting of a new weapon)?
How much time do I actually play? Would having a buy shop or sell shop up for long periods of time hinder my enjoyment of the game or would it not matter?
Can I SELL the materials needed to craft a weapon for enough to warrent buying a weapon at shop price instead of craft price?
By and large you can CRAFT a weapon for 2/3 of the cost to BUY a weapon from a sell shop if you're willing to purchase materials slowly and at a fair buy shop price. If you purchase your materials from a sell shop typically you break even on upper end weapons and frequently lose money when crafting mid or low end gear.
This process can be as complicated or as simple as you like depending on how many factors you want to work into it, but the bottom line is: are you getting $15 a month out of your play time?
I like to buy and sell and shop and trade and barter and negotiate. It's what I do for a living. So I don't mind sitting in town selling my AA at 3a per and then buying at 1.5a at night, or setting up buy shops on materials and then crafting items just to sell to the open market.
If you don't have the time, or the patience to enjoy that aspect of the game I say you grind out your AA and upgrade when you can, because crafting is kind of a headache if you aren't into that sort of thing.
There isn't much reason for a person in the above scenario to purchase AA because they likely won't have the extra money for it after porting and such, BUT if you are a die hard duo or soloist and grind in places that are profitable and material rich then you can certainly dump your hunted mats to a buy shop like mine, buy your AA from a sell shop and upgrade. Your margin won't be as good, but your time investment would be a lot less.
So what's your time worth and how do you enjoy spending it?