Revised post to be a bit more clear:
Newbie weapons and armor aren't OP, even before the newbie weapons were nerfed. You could easily sell junk like spider silks and pelts to other players and get a BALS, BABS, FFBLS, EBM, or something like that on the cheap by the time you can complete the quests. Now with the nerfed newbie weapons, they're basically not even worth doing. Not even for someone starting fresh. Not with how dirt cheap better weapons are in Commonlands.
The newbie armor is 80% trash with useless stats. There are only a handful of genuinely good pieces, like the Troll Shaman bracers or the Dark Elf helm. Some sets are 100% trash, like the Kelethin Druid set. Sure, it killed the banded armor market, but it was already dead before the newbie armor, when you could buy a full set of blackened alloy for as much as it took to buy a full set of banded. Assuming you weren't just given a set by passerbys, which happened to me on two melee characters. I've since returned the favor 10x over.
Mel, I comprehend the basic idea behind your guild, but the truth is you kinda misrepresent your members. You seemed to take glee in the newbie weapon nerfs, mocking other players for being disappointed that their (often considerable, some of the quests -suck-) effort was all for naught. That, and your penchant for calling anyone with the newbie armor "noobs" (don't pretend there isn't a difference between "newbie" and "noob") among other, less pleasant things...
Well, it just shows poorly on you and - by relation - your guild. I'm sure there are lots of nice players in your guild. I'm sure you're a nice person to people out of general or newplayers chat. But frankly you're doing a lot of harm to your guild when you insult other people for questing for gear that's (sometimes) not really even worth the effort to quest.
Just relax, advertise your guild, drop the "noob" (and less pleasant) comments, and just enjoy the game without looking down on others. That's just my friendly advice.
Edited, May 3rd 2011 5:05am by MegidoFlare