Ya, I think raids there is a definite need for gear, but not so much for Duo's or Hard Alerts. I think if you are with smart people, you can do them all with regular gear, and it just gets easier from there.
Went from level 10-16 last night. Felt very quick, but I guess it was about 6 hours of play time. Of which, an hour was spent doing an Alert. Alerts are a good break from regular just quest grinding. Fun, and great experience.
I'm really loving the controller though. Super powerful, and the power regen provided in groups is so great. In the Hive instance, fighting Queen Bee. I just spammed bow shot, to build combo's, and spammed psychic empowerment, to give power back to the group. Our main DPS loved it as I could tell he was using every bit of his power too. Healer never got low, and it was awesome.
After doing a Hard Area 51, and having such a horrible controller, I for sure know that I want to be a controller, as they provide so much help to the group. A good controller can turn the tides on a fight or a bad group. If you are an amazing tank, you can do much if your healer or controller are horrible.
Or in the case of my hard Area 51 experience. Great 2 tanks, great healer, but the controller sucked so bad, not giving power back to the group, that it still sucked, cuz the healer had no mana.