yes, but at a lower cost with lower chance, not the current rate.
also don't come here and talk about best thing that ever happend when you've only played crpg since april so it would seem, you have no place here.
I've played cRPG since it was first ever released to public ( obviously had breaks, but have played every build and seen all changes ) and it is most definitely one of the best additions. It was boring as hell when three quarters of the players on the battlefield were all in some kind of huge plate all using the same weapon, lol.
16k is absolutely nothing in terms of gold, which is what the guy is complaining about and when you want to use plated charger with good armour it's not a surprise it went quickly, that's how it should be, there are people who have gold into the hundreds of thousands and into the millions, they are the sort of players that are able to use that stuff for a while.
If people want to use the very best of everything for more than 20 minutes, then they are going to have to dedicate some time to earning the gold to sustain it. You don't need the top equipment to have fun.