Has the game gotten kinder yet to people who need to catch up?

I remember playing less around patch 2.2 because I had done pretty much all "free" content and the only remaining ones were blocked by gear checks that would require grinding better gear.

I took a quick return around 2.3 to do more interesting side quests, but those also went into more large group battle fields, and I didn't want to join those and feel terrible about my bad gear (even if I would meet minimum requirements).

Now I see 2.4 is out, and yet again I'd love to do some of the story, but am still afraid I'll just end up logging in to the same game I left, where I need to grind old gear at terrible drop rates to even catch up to the new content requirements.

So, would there for example be really cheap auction house gear for higher levels that I could buy with my low amounts of money? Or is the economy broken and you need millions for this gear shortcut? Or does the game still not have any purchaseable items of high gear score?

Alternatively, are drops much more common and available from old content? (Assuming I'd get anyone to do it to begin with, without instantly leaving because it is my first time doing something that has been out for 6 months).

Saw we had some cash shop items now as well. Sadly nothing there with high gear score to let me buy myself back into content and enjoyment. Naturally buying gear wouldn't mean I bought the experience to face roll content, so I'd still have to get back into the game. But I suspect learning some patterns would go slightly faster than grinding full armor sets.

PS. I stopped the game around Garuda Hard / Gilgamesh fight. Never tried either due to usually not having a couple hours free at that period.