It would be good if there was a rent for 48 hours option (for a sum of gold). Maybe make it so you can only rent a weapon once, so you can try them all if you want but only each item once. (if devs think this is necessary to stop abuse).
Tips for the mean time
Market place - You can buy and sell rank 0 items on the market place, there's quite often no need to spend the full market value, or get the shitty 50% return by selling back to the shop.
Clan armories - Most clans have items in an armory which you can borrow to try out (you may even have a rich member who doesn't mind buying something to put onto the armory.
Peasant united -
Current faction thread clams over 350 items in the armory.
Friends - If a friend has an item you want to try you could ask to borrow it.. either they spawn it for you at the start of rounds or you swap for it on the marketplace then return it (make sure you have a pm between you on cRPG.net stating the agreement, that way if someone goes wrong a admin/dev can fix it). Or even just join their clan temporarily to borrow it from the armory.
Finding it on the ground - As mentioned by others quite often you can find the weapon on the ground (especially when there's >100 players on the server). Though this is pure chance if there is a particular weapon you're looking for... This is best for when you're on siege, someone kills you and you think "damn what was that weapon" watch them on death cam and see where they die and go get it. (If you can't find anyone using it.. there's usually a reason).
STF - As mentioned by HG_Guard_Phew. Skip the fun character get 10k gold to try out different builds and weapons.. this is why this option is there.
