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and still have not made up for the 17K I paid for the spell
My point is that I can sympathise about expensive spell costs, but in my opinion you buy the spells to help your guild or group. If you can make even 10pp off of it from others, consider yourself blessed. I'm not condoning cheapskates who try to pay 12gp for a Virtue, KEI, etc since I agree with the mana = time = money thing, just that I don't shed many tears over the start-up cost of casting them for plat.
Personally, I almost never buy buffs. If me or my group can't hack an area without external buffs then we probably don't belong there. Druid healing instead of a cleric? Slap a PotG on me instead of Virtue. What would we do if my Virtue was dispelled? Go home? On the rare occassions I do buy a buff, I pay pretty well for it since I can afford to (given that it's a rare expense).