1-40 can be cranked out in CR/BM pretty mindlessly. Velks 35-55 takes a couple hours. Classes that can put a DS on merc have a huge speed advantage. Velks/Veksar/Paw will get you to 60. Paw is pretty solid until 68ish when everything is blue. If you can mass pull the whole zone it stays decent until 82, actually. At 70 you can start getting your toes into SOF tasks and zones. Between tasks and farm spots you can just keep going there until 90. Giant mech, spires, fort mech, all great solo spots with mobs up to the low 80s.
Once your gear is up to snuff at 90 HoT tasks and zones seem pretty decent. UF was a kick in the dick in terms of risk v reward and the community was loud enough that they specifically retuned HoT to be a lot more accessible. Find a good farm spot to rake the plat in. Buy some of the UF raid gear as prices come down. You'll be through HoT in no time.
Got my BRD to 68 before grinding in paw got boring today, and I finished 2.0 on my BST. Getting my spell set for molo right was a huge boost there. 60% group haste + DS. 15% overhaste aura (25% at 70, yay). 1 DOT. Weapon proc. At 71 I will get an AA that will boost song durations by 6s so I can start twisting 6 songs instead. Most go with more DOTs. But that's something I will be getting back to. 65-70ish is my stopping point for now. All my plate personas are going to be full defiant + whatever good weapon/shield I can get. First phase will get them all to 70 so I can slap elegant on them. I have a generic all/all set for 85, and am looking to build another for 90.
Rolled PLD. Parked in CR ready to start tomorrow. Hopefully get that and either WAR or CLR done up this week.