Not sure what you're on about, if you've been ailing for gear then you've been doing it wrong...if you complete all the quests and are sensible about what you put on, you won't have any problems with gear...but yeah, if you're trying to play without a companion things are going to be hard, the developers of the game assume that you have a certain baseline of power and that includes your companion, so if you are below that baseline, things will be hard or even impossible...