In CoH the entire problem was supply. Everything is easier to accumulate here on HC, on Live things like PvP recipes were stupidly rare. The merit prices, converter, and seeded salvage demonstrate this. Supply was the cause of inflation on Live. The other things mentioned certainly contributed to that, but they only mattered because of the intentional scarcity of certain items. Which is fine, digital items being infinite resources, all scarcity is intentional.