I never said buying gear wasn't legitimate. I merely meant that once you have access to Tomestone gear, you don't have to spend Gil on gear to meet ilvl requirements while leveling.
If you're on a road to 70 server, and on normal servers to a lesser extent, if you arent spending gil, you should get used to taking gear upgrades for your main class every chance you get when offered, cause you're never going to have enough currency to stay behind, let alone caught up. My most recent alt was 58 before i could afford a single piece of ironworks visible gear.

You're also going to die when sneezed on at the start of every new expansion.