An auction house is an exponentially better market system than the wards. The ward system is fine for the bare minimum of buying and selling items between players, but it lacks the advanced features to make it function the way an MMO market should function. There is no way to differentiate between NQ and HQ items using the ward system. There is no price history to compare sales (getting this in 1.20, last 20 sales.) You have to zone every time you want to buy an item, making it take at least twice as long as buying from a list (another thing we are getting in 1.20.) You have to know the category of the item you want to buy, and even then there is little organization in the way the items are listed. Lastly, off the top of my head, there is no way to search for items by name. Ex: If you want a full set of Steel gear, you have to find each piece manually and track each item separately.
