Why do people pay so much for L40 Common IOs?

I've noticed an interesting market phenomenon as I've dabbled in value-added crafting and selling of common IOs: the L40 IOs, at least of the popular ones like accuracy, damage, and so on usually sell for prices similar to or higher than the L50 versions of those IOs. (Which means I can generally craft them for a lot less than it costs to craft L50s, and sell them for a higher profit.)

Can anyone hazard a guess as to why they're so much in demand?

Maybe they upgrade at 40 and then slot sets at 50 is my guess.

During 2XP, 30's and 40's sold a lot better than 35s. My guess is a lot of people slot something like "25, SO's; 30, IO's; 40, upgrade IO's; 50, sets." I'm sure it varies by person but you're going to get kind of an averaging effect.

Common IOs are always an easy target for quick profit. Pretty much at any level you can buy stacks for 1/10th to 1/100th less of what you can turn around and sell them for.

Don't let anyone know, tho, as it's how I casually fund my lowbies

It is worth noting that lvl 40 Common IOs are always better than +++ SOs, so for many players it is likely a spot at which they stop slotting SOs at all. I get the sense that many players continue to use SOs through the 20s & 30s since green SOs grant higher enhancement values than common IOs in that range. But since lvl 40 common IOs outperform even the greenest SOs, those players make the switch at that point.

Of course multi-enhancement set IOs outperform SOs from lower levels, but the sort of players we are discussing don't want to handle the added complexity or cost of sets at that point, if ever. Lvl 40 IOs get them through the run to lvl 50, where they can upgrade to the even better lvl 50 IOs, convert to sets, or just stand pat. That's not my style of play, but I guess it works for those that do choose to play that way.

I'm lazy.

My new project KM/Regen Stalker needed some basic IOs so I dropped 30 million on them so I could keep playing the game. There were literally NO Heal IOs at the 30-40 range for sale (crafted) so I crafted those myself for a pittance. Could have done the same thing with the rest of the IOs but Mid-level sales (33) were so good I just dumped a bunch of inf back in the market.

I check level 50, 45, and 40 price to purchase when I want to slot a common IO before I craft it. Why? Because often I can buy below crafting cost. I'll take whichever one is currently cheapest even if that means paying level 50 price from yesterday for the level 40 today, if the level 50 is even higher today.

I sort of fall into FourSpeed's third group. Post level 40, the difference in bonus isn't relevant to me. To be honest, in most cases the different past level 20 isn't relevant to me, I just like that IOs never expire and don't have origin limits.

But 9/10 times I go for a set not a common.

I'm amazed at how deep the pool of bids for common IOs is. I've been working on my field crafter for all toons project (actually only 40 toons....but thats another issue) in anticipation of buying the market anywhere command shortly and other than things like defense debuff there is always a huge pile of profitable bids for me as long as I don't dump like 60 of the same common IO at once.

If you're the one buying my common IOs and flipping them....glad to help you. I really don't need the inf I already have but making more is easier once I have field crafter on all my toons (I'm about 55% done the project though only 11 toons have field crafter).

thats the last stage of those io's just hold on to those till you hit lvl 47 then start slotting the lvl 50 sets the sellers know how to use the system but i always like to throw a wrench in their gears by selling them for 10 infamy :P

Level 40 common IOs are still made with midlevel salvage, which is really freakin' expensive.

A lot of people round everything up to the nearest half-million inf these days? I figure at half a million inf per IO it costs something like 32 million inf. That's not a lot of money these days if you sell ANYTHING at wentworth's.

Also consider that the lvl 50 market is depressed due to a glut of people doing Incarnate stuff and just throwing all the common stuff on the market for 100 or so.

From this discussion, I'm thinking that if I were to do Random Rare Recipe rolls with my merits, I'd be better off shooting for a tier lower than 50. Is that accurate?