I think exploiting layering for farming won’t have much of an economic impact at all, in the early stages or the long run. People more than likely won’t be making mules as their first toon on the server and will be busy leveling and getting their main professions up. Not to mention who will have the gold to splurge on all those mats right away - you need a healthy working population in order for the economy to kick in like it will once the general pop gets to 60.
By the time layering gets removed in the first few weeks (I personally think we will see it a week or two max), only the hardcore levelers will have made it to 60 and that would be very few and far-between. They probably won’t have the gold required to make farming mats worthwhile on an epic mount.
There’s so much to do before farming anything can become a viable source of income and in the first few months there will be too many people competing for nodes for their own professions to try to make any kind of money with mat farming. That’s important to remember.
And if some folks do make their herbalists and miners right off the bat - by the time the layers collapse they wouldn’t have amassed much and will just more than likely have those mats sit in the bank waiting for people to get spending cash to buy them - there’s little point.
I think exploit farming is being overblown, tbh. We are talking about everyone starting from square 1 on fresh servers. Most won’t have enough cash for abilities, let alone cash to buy mats to level their profs.