As a idea of how 'hard' it is to start on test, I made a ranger, /test buff to 25 with the junk gear, gave it some plat for a merc. Took it to Gokaru Mesa or whatever just north of blightfire moors where mobs start at like 35 I think, not even trying I was level 33 in under 2 hours and didn't even get close to dying except when I jumped some named bear. Half the time was spent looting the corpses which after I sold all the junk I looted the next day in about 2 hours I made over 2k plat and got 11 more levels i think. This was not using exp pots at all just the lesson of the day aa you get free. Also looted 3 or 4 pieces of gear I could use.
If you need plat feel free to ask me, I'm usually in the chat channel that some of the people here use /join rerolled p/w is trannies (I have no idea who originally made this, was in the first 10 or so pages of this thread). Can't do like a million to everyone but heck, 30-40k is easy.
As for grouping, I've grouped a couple times with random people I gave low level gear to in that zone who needed it. But I probably never will group with them again because I logout, next day I login they are 10-20 levels higher lol.
Characters I'm normally on are Yoshihira or Mystrak, I can't even recall the rangers name lol.