Recently I have been buying quite a few things ranging from a Battered Hilt to the mats needed to craft the level 264 leather pants for my Druid. The mats range from 8 primordial saronite to arctic fur, eternal shadows and nerubian chitin. I don't usually buy much off the ah as I prefer to sell and hoarde my gold.

What I have noticed during this recent buying is how much cheaper literally everything is on Thrall vs. Sentinels. Battered hilts on Thrall are 8k vs. 10-11 on Sentinels (cheapest right now is 14k). Primordial Saronite on Thrall 700 vs. 750-850 on Sentinels.

I don't know the reason for this disparity - perhaps more raiding so more supply on Thrall?

You can get the Battered Hilt on Sent Sentinels for 8-9K pretty easy. But its not gonna be in AH. Cheapest I ever saw on AH was 9.6k but I constantly saw it for 8-9K (lots 8.5K).

I imagine population as well as number of people raiding is what is causing the disparity, if you check mal'ganis horde side (most progressed faction/server) you'll cry at the prices.

I always hear players in trade whining about how cheap people are on Sentinels. I think that prices fluctuate though. Some things were much cheaper on Sentinels than on Thrall but others are not. Someone in Sentinels trade was claiming that Blizzard was planning to make the AH cross-realm, but I don't know how if they were just trolling. It certainly riled lots of people up. Some people said that this would stabilize the WoW economy. Others said it would wreck it. I personally think it evens out. If things are cheap you don't accumulate as much gold, but on the other hand you can buy lots more with the little you have.

I wouldnt mind a cross realm AH sometimes when I'm leveling a skill on a new toon it can be terribly frustrating to get to a point where I can't find a specific item on the AH for days. I would imagine with all those postings it would be terribly slow.

A cross realm ah is interesting but for those of us with very rare craftable recipes I think it would mean a real hit on gold generation. I get at least 90% of my gold from selling one item from a rare recipe. I know it sounds selfish but a cross server ah would really push down my net profit I think.