Ellimere

So i returned after a long time and i must say i´m pretty annoyed, friend started the game and in 4 hours is lvl 85 with third transfer,subclass and better gear than my character on which i spent several years to get to that. To my question: Is there a way for me to get that R grade gear, and those 50k R soulshots and spiritshots he got for a character that hit 85 ages ago? Or is that just a classic NCSoft bleep you to old players, because i have almost no adena and the amount it drops is laughable? Also wtf happened to skills? my sub Sorcerer and my sub Evas Templar can´t use single one of their skills and i could just learn like 3 that are usable?