I got all my retainers to lvl50 before I bothered crafting a full set of gear for them. and all the while they were levelling I kept the gear to the barest to actually do the venture.

there's lots of cheap gear on the 5lvl intervals on mb due to people selling of gear they get from guild/mission progression.

plus I mainly used the selectable gathering type ventures until hitting 50, now I use quick exploration a few times a day.