Aside from babby's first plate when I had a paltry month of experience under my belt, I've never lost gold due to upkeep. The lion's share of my time playing has been with transitional plate, heavy gaunts, and the most expensive weapons. Sometimes, when I was pure 1h, I'd take a steel pick, warhammer, and sword for the swiss army knife effect! Hell, even playing cav on a heavy horse with transitional plate never got me a net loss. Sure, the gain was minimal but I at least broke even.
And this was what I'd call the "normal" gold gain, before it was increased over and over.
Granted, I got valour quite often as I got better, frequently with a good team/bannerstack to back me up. I didn't get it enough to invalidate my experience, though. I, uh...think.