I remember going into AK to complete GC quest just to get a sword and being stuck for the longest time because everyone at that time was relatively under-geared as well, it was a complete and utter nightmare lol but at-least we were all terribly geared at that point so the pointing fingers was kept to a minimum. I'm pretty sure thats all but changed now.

I'm not sure where these crazy expectations come from people though now, especially when they're using DF.