Oh hey! Still playing through though I'm heading into the home stretch. Definitely frittered a number of hours away on hard mode before realizing I liked being reckless with a side of care more than I did careful with a side of REKT.
RE: Money - Yeah the game definitely does not want you to storm through with maxed out weapons for half your team. Silver mark hunting requires substantial grinding on reinforcements. Gold mark grinding is pretty much non-existent so far as I know. Getting 3 exotic spices helped a ton, but it's not enough. And if you want to evolve some of your weapons? Forget it. Still glad I picked up a rapier, zweihander, and killer bow, though.
All of Alm's villagers I made into the predictable classes. Grey = merc, Tobes = bowes, Faye = cleric, and Kliff = mage. I can see why for all of them, really. Atlas I also made a merc and NO RAGRETS I think his strength is some beastly number because of his growths. The dread fighter line has some ridiculous base stats, plus the resistance boost
S. They all compensated for Atlas's (and Grey's) topsided growths and the results were great. I stuck Atlas with a silver sword and sweet Christmas he hits hard.
As for characters good/bad, uhmm
Good: All of the villagers had utility even in the event their stats don't turn out spectacular. Mathilda, Forsyth, Clair, and Delthea were standouts from Alm's side. Est, Sonya, Jesse, and
were particularly strong on Celica's.
Bad: Lukas, Clive, Python, Kamui, Nomah, and on a real bad day Palla simply took up space and little else.