In fact, when I played a mage, I used to hang around the cities selling teleports to non-mages for one gold each so I could eventually afford my own horse. Screw your world-saving quests, Blizzard, I can make money my own way.
Hear, hear!
My biggest gripe with MMORPGs these days is that there's too little of that. To stick with WoW, crafting has been reduced to a) clicking on a single button indicating what you want to build, and b) a pointless exercise, because most of the things you can make are worthless for anything other than advancing your crafting skill. And consequently c) once you've made enough of item X, you'll never, ever have a need to make another one again.
It'd be possible to make different aspects of an MMORPG, I mean other than killing mobs, into a game of it's own. To stick with crafting, the whole thing would be worthwhile if crafted items were on par with or better than items gained from churning through PvE content, and cost less to make so you can sell it for about the same. And if the act of building something was a mini-game of sorts, rather than a click of a button, that might be fun in it's own right. If made properly; for example, forcing players to level their characters in order to be allowed to try new crafting recipes (as if proficiency with weapons had anything to do with proficiency with a set of tools) is NOT very helpful in allowing for creative game play.
Fast-travel, besides killing immersion somewhat, also makes it pointless to try your hand at the trading game. There was a time in WoW when there was only one auction house that was accessible to alliance and horde alike, and items available to only faction would be found only there. People traveled there to buy them in bulk (as much as possible), and sell them elsewhere for a profit.
There's a lot of potential in these games to make it possible to play it other than by leveling your character through questing/killing mobs. Seems like the current design tropes in MMORPGs work actively against allowing that, though.