I'm sorry, but some of these pro-market ward comments are so sort-sighted. You're taking a few aspects into consideration, exaggerating them, and ignoring the rest. The market wards, as they are now, are a pain for anyone who searches for different items several times a day, buys lots of different items at once, buys items in bulk, etc. Maybe if you only need to buy one item at a time, every so often, then the wards are sufficient, but anyone who crafts a lot, and does a lot of buying & selling, does not simply go buy one item every now and then. I spend hours upon hours in the wards every week.

There's too much running involved, there's too many slow menu screens to click through, there's no quick search function, there's no way to differentiate HQ items from NQ items, there's always a shortage of space for retainers (at least on my server), and there is no price history, thus items become over priced and don't sell because some people aren't aware of the going rate.

I cannot think of a single aspect of the market ward system that works better than a decent auction house system, besides maybe having an unlimited amount of time to sell items.

However, I do agree there are more important issues for the devs to focus on, but for those who act like the wards are somehow better than a good auction house system, either you are someone who is not very involved in the game's economy (i.e. lots of crafting, gathering, buying, selling), or you are unaware, or possibly just ignoring, the reality of the situation, for whatever reason(s).