If you remove leveling, why not remove gold and let everyone have all the items? Then you'll be left with just plain Native Warband multiplayer with slightly different animations and more equipment. Leveling itself is not the problem, the problem is how it's carried out. First of all, the leveling curve is just dumb. You get the first 30-something levels in one go, and once you get to 34 you have to endlessly grind to 35. There are some masochists who don't retire at 35.
http://forum.melee.org/suggestions-corner/xp-level/http://forum.melee.org/general-discussion/flatten-xp-level-curve/Flattening the xp/level curve would create bigger differences between low and high level chars. But then again, people would spend more time at lower levels, so you'd have more low level players running around rather than lvl 37 tryhards with all +3 items. The reason why people stay and not retire at 37 is that they don't get the appropriate amount of looms: you get 1 for 35 (8 mil xp), 3 for 36 (24 mil xp), and still 3(?) for 37 (110 mil xp).
http://forum.melee.org/suggestions-corner/release-the-multiplier-from-it's-x5-shackles!/Also a good thing would be to wipe everyone's accounts. New players come into the game and get mauled by lvl 37 wizards with their loomed everything and tryhard skills. But a wipe would only work if you redo the xp/level curve. People like to level up and feel more powerful with each level. If I'm stuck at one level for an eternity, I won't enjoy it much.
Another reason why people get discouraged is the current tick system. Everyone in a team gets equal amount of xp and gold, regardless of how they contribute to the team. People like to be rewarded for their efforts and achievements, so we should get xp and gold at the end of each round, based on how much damage we dealt, how many kills we got, how long we stood at the flag and so on. If you did nothing - you get some base amount just to get new players going. If you did good - you get a bonus. Maybe add a general multiplier based on win/loss ratio so that players who clearly contribute to their team's victory get slightly more xp and gold while players who happen to lose more than win for some reason get less.
But I guess none of it will happen, all that's left is wait for August and OKAM EA, then I can finally leave this cesspool called cRPG.