And of course, once you've levelled up a bit you can start doing
Heritage Quests. These take a long time to do and in most cases will require a group for certain parts. They do however give many times the status of writs, and if you complete them at the right level give pretty good & useful rewards too.
A note on crafting writs: the timed writs are not that difficult if you organise yourself & make sure you have plenty of raw material & fuel before you start. You will get your fuel costs back and the items you craft will automatically disappear from your inventory. You will get some additional cash for completing the writ, some status, and a reasonable bit of crafting xp. In other words, they are well worth doing, especially if you need to grind up a few levels.
Edit: And yes, the nerf to the status loot blows big time!
Edited, Oct 1st 2007 7:46am by HubertKerfuffle