But at the same time there are harsher penalties that in WoW, like the exp death penalty. If you fail on making an item while crafting you will lose the materials. But they make crafted items very desirable from what I have been told.
Vanguard is very similar to Eq 1, which I played for 3 yrs. I am very glad you are happy with it. It fits nicely for some play styles.
After playing Wow for one day, I canceled my Eq account, and will never go back. Eq 1 and Vanguard are more for folks that enjoy getting carpal tunnel from the 1000 combines to create a one item in professions, and loosing the items that you have worked hours to obtain from a single fail; who don't mind loosing 8 hours of game play worth of exp gain in 1 or 2 deaths; who enjoy having to group on all quests to get anything done. That is not my play style, nor do I have time to advance my character in games like this.
The world is HUGE, but they don't instance any of the dungeons.
Welcome to spawn camping

I never played Eq 2, so I don't know if it is as rampant and spawns as fought for as in Eq 1, but this is all that not instancing areas creates. You pick one area that has a couple spawns and call it in ooc, and stay at that spot for as long as your group stays together. If anyone takes spawns from your camp that you have called, they are ks'ing, or kill stealing and it gets announced in ooc, so that no one will group with that person.
Eq 1 introduced Ldon's towards the end of the time I stopped playing, which were instanced dungeons for one group of 6, that was all yours without worrying about 'camping' it, or waiting in line for a certain area for hours. WoW has taken this instancing to wonderful extremes by making all their dungeons instanced.
I am not sure if Vanguard has put in ways to keep spawn camping down or not, but this was no fun in Eq 1.
Lord of the Rings Online does not have a death exp penalty that I have seen. I don't know if they are planning on instituting one for when it goes live. It is a nice game, similar to WoW and Eq, but taking some of the best from both, and from other games also.
WoW just does not have the time sinks in it that the Eq developers like to put into their games. It works well for working mama's. I am definitely a care bear and enjoy being one
