Yes the sad fact of leveling up as a euro is that you party on red mobs which = 0 drops. I can party with an 8 person group at PEGS for 3 hours and we may get 1 or 2 drops max. I usually spend a little time soloing some green/white mobs just in hopes of geting a few drops to sell or donate to my guildmates.
I know what you mean - when I came over to Venus from Pacific in the first 2 hours as I was soloing from 1-20 level mobs - I got an SOM warlock rod (level 1

) and a level 19 SOS head. In the next 40 levels I can count the drops probably on two hands.