quick grouping questionFollow

ok, some friends and I recently tried grouping, me as a rogue, one as a paladin, and one as a warlock. but, i noticed we were getting really bad xp, even fighting level 12s at level 9.
my questions: is this normal? is soloing more effective at gaining random xp from killing? If it isn't, what general guidelines should we follow? such as in party level range, level of monsters fought, ect.
Also, no matter how much we held back, me (and the warlock on occasions) would rip hate off the paladin. I know this isn't FFXI, but i thought paladins could tank effectively in this. so what were we doing wrong? mind you, we are all fairly new (all in open beta for what it matters), so it might have been our fault.
thanks in advance

You pretty much kill at such an increased rate in groups the exp loss your seeing is simply in the amounts per kills, and not over time. Sure if you group and only kill 3-4 mobs in 5-7 minutes, then your gonna get worse exp, but if you group up to head into a dungeon and the sort, youll get mass amounts of exp.