Gold should be rare, but you shouldn't have to struggle.
From what i can see, it is fairly rare (people are telling others not to sell rarer drops yet because they have a perceived value from other servers! and there just isn't enough gold in the game at the moment to cover the prices people are expecting ) - I haven't struggled for gold (there are fairly safe, easy way to get gold - OmaWarriors/Chestnuts/ebony fruits/mining)
My personal fav method for cash is - Teleport to the noob town - stick on an episode of family guy - kill every spitting spider/ebony tree/chestnut tree you see - i ended up making 80k in one episode yesterday (20-22minutes) Im thinking it might actually be more profitable to avoid the trees and go straight for the spiders but ill need to do some tests with this.
dont forget though, if you get one decent item from a hunt it could fund your hunting for a few weeks! (if you are a scavenger like me, and you dont ever leave a hunt without a full bag! you wont have much trouble.)
i seem to find people that complain about not having cash are the ones that think they are too high level to pick up the precision necklace or copper ring (300-400gold) or pick up the tiny piles of gold.
if you are really poor, you could just stand in safezone and wait for people to drop items on the floor, then just grab them up sell them directly to the junk man (WARNING THE JUNK MAN PAYS 10% LESS THAN THE CORRECT SHOP)
you'd be surprised how much money is just laying on the floor round town! (sometimes right next to the junk man!)