You know, four hours ago I would have agreed with the Original Poster, but then I leveled and a half in that time, with a completely random, pick-me-up group whose members changed perhaps seven times over the period. I led it through the last half of it, and only one person died, when he got too close to a group of Trolls on the way back to the gate.
The trick is this - STAY CLOSE TO THE GATE. Just go south, dart around the groups that are too low for you, and scavenge around the ruined buildings. Don't mess with the fields, the guys there will KILL you. Don't mess with the big hole in the ground, THEY'LL kill you too! Get together a good group (with a good tanker, controller or defender, if not more than one), along with the requisite scrappers and blasters, and you'll be fine as long as you don't get greedy. If someone has a mission halfway across the map, on the other side of a thousand purple Trolls and CoTs, guess what? Tough. That guy's gonna have to come back when he's level 15. Missions kill you dead in The Hollows. Stick to the streets until you're high enough level that you're not constantly dodging reds and purples on your way back to sell, because sooner or later, you'll misjudge somebody's aggro range, and will catch a sudden case of lightning, ice, and seven boulders in the pancreas.
