I'd say "yes" to all tiers, and I'd add spells in there.

Basically, the current system has two settings:
  • you find someone Knowledged to the TEETH (possibly yourself) and they make you a full set of Murderation 9001.
  • you don't find someone and you're stuck in rags beggars wouldn't be caught dead in. Also, you probably die horribly all the time.

Now, I don't want to hurt the call for crafters. Sweet baby Drulkar, I don't want to hurt it. I am one of those crafters, and the last time someone hired me to make a set of teched spells for them I was over the moon with joy. But I've also had to start from nothing, and let me just remind those who may have forgotten that once you make it to New Trismus or Kion or whatever and all you have to your name is a rinky-dink shield, a stick, and a Training Firebolt, it sucks. Now, if you are fortunate or well-connected you can spend a day (or two or five) organizing tech comps and finding crafters and getting yourself fitted out in your very own Murderation 9001. That's time spent probably standing around in town, and talking to lots of people, and just generally NOT adventuring, but whatever, at least when it's done you can go kill things without a massive handicap.

But if you don't know people, or they're not online, or you don't have someone showering you with the harder-to-get bits? You can try to do every last bit of it yourself: craft up, try to get every tech/form you'll need (HAAAAhahahaha), or else go face the ravening hordes in the equivalent of your undies. If all you wanted to do was go teach some gruok not to be such pigfaces, this is almost certainly less fun than the other choice. (Undead? Oh please, they look at you funny and you flop over dead.)

So I think "refurbished" armor, weapons, and spells would be a nice stopgap. Not as good as teched. No way as good as teched, and you'll still want to get your hands on your very own tailor-made Murderation 9001.* But in the meantime, you'll at least be able to go out and DO something besides sit on your hands and/or die constantly.

Spells too because being a caster is hard enough when they give you NAUFFINK. Techs are invaluable there, even at low levels, so again: easy-to-get unteched would be a wonderful stopgap until you can find someone to make you the good stuff. None of this "training" crud.


*I am making the faith-based assumption here that the devs can figure out how to make unteched, quickie stuff less attractive than a fully-teched kit.