I think that the way you describe the progression is essentially correct in describing one's interaction with MindArk. It's the interaction with the market (other players) that make it more interesting. More players would probably stay if
EU was presented in those terms from the start ("Play at your level") so they didn't overextend and end up broke. Beyond that, they need to understand the importance of markup as itree said. There can be better markup drops at higher levels, but it's not just bigger mobs (and not all bigger mobs) that drop more markup, it's mobs that not everyone wants to hunt. Everything in
EU is a tradeoff between ease and expense.
Certainly playing carefully can mitigate most of the loss, as itree shows with his thread on frugality (although he has definitely been very lucky). I have an overall ~99% return on my last 125k PEDs ammo through selling everything I loot if it has any markup at all, and I wouldn't say I've been particularly lucky. If i just look at tt return, the number is less than 90% (over 12k loss).