the compass is worth it as soon as possible.

Dust costs a lot because it is used to upgrade your gear, some lvl 12 who have thousands and thousands are most likely alts, and as Clara Korn said, you should try and get the compass as soon as you can, and finally, for instances, just look basically, but remember for the gear quests the other players in group can only be +/- 5 levels above or below yours

1) yes
2) don't buy on ah, figure out what reps and items you need for the dust and get to work on your own. Why some smaller have 1000s is because of running instances and skrag cave then dusting drops + martial valor day drops + having mains with good reps that can buy gear, dust it, sell it to the alt who then sits patiently on ah for someone else to be desperate enough to pay the prices.
3) use LFG tab, and make friends from near tabs. It shouldn't be too hard to find 3 or 4 other people if you preplan an 'event' time. Hopefully the fixes to confrontation will help us get and keep new players soon.

Thanks a ton for the replies everyone!
Is there some way to figure out how much dust ill get for dusting a certain item because only reason i dont dust stuff is because im unsure.

You cant know for sure but look at the item value if you want to sell it to the game, and that value is a good estimate of how much dust you get. Dust an item that its worth 1g for example, see how much you get, then, when you want to dust something worth 3g, you can make a proportion and that works fairly well...

With Garuug's compass, it's important to have the teleportation rune stone. Cost of that is 10 reals if I recall correctly. Seems expensive, but it's something you would want with or without Garuug. It's worth the investment though, otherwise, you may not get the full value of Garuug

Experiment on dusting items. that's how you will learn what is best to use for that purpose.

Another way to find others to do quests with you is through Arena of Honor. People in your bracket may need the same quest, or may be willing to help a fellow gamer.

Good luck!!!

Yeah i missed my first garuug because couldnt get their fast enough, hopefully I'll eventually be able to gather 10 reals im at 2.9 right now.