playing devil's advocate for a moment, where do the credit sellers get their credits from? They would need to make tremendous amounts of credits if they wanted to sell them, and the obvious and quickest way would be over inflating items on the GTN. Much like they do in practically all MMO's out there. The amount of times I have been whispered or seen credit seller advertisments in chat does not make this game immune to them doing what they do.
As I see it, the GTN is a little worthless to a new player, because not only can you not buy anything within a reasonable amount of credits, but it harms the economy in the long run, the little guy / new guy gets hurt / stung the most, because he cannot even buy things from the GTN because of the over inflated prices.
If the crafting is dead, you can bet that the GTN will follow it sooner than a lot of people think, it's the law of economics...over price for too long, and people stop buying, except those at the top end of the scale with the most credits, which will lead to the GTN becoming obsolete. The developers need to do something, to ensure that never happens, by making the economy and GTN fair, right now, unless I buy credits I cannot buy anthing my character needs. Healthy at the top, but drastically atrocious at the bottom.