Davor, a couple of minor points that I'll add: the game continues two years after the Searing, not one year. The two most valuable dyes are black and white, which you should sell rather than use. You can use the other colors to dye your armor, but you get to look at it in a window first to see how well it works -- dyes look different depending on the material, cloth versus metal for example. You can also mix colors by putting two or more in the window to see what results if they're mixed. The Xunlai storage chests are available after the Searing and are a big help for storage, including storing crafting materials. (The money to buy the Xunlai chests is game money, not real-world money; you can buy additional storage space ("panes") within the chests for real-world money at the NCSoft game store, but I haven't bothered.)
When you salvage or buy runes, you can put them on your heroes' gear as well as your own. You can't modify your henchmen, though; heroes aren't available until you play Nightfall or Eye of the North. (You can then take the heroes to other games such as Factions and Prophecies, though, when you hit level 10 if I recall correctly.)
Have fun with the game(s).