I actually would just advise that you don't bother augging any gear until a much further along point in the raiding game, money is way better suited in charm fund than really minor benefits that basically exist for fomelo epeen.
http://wiki.shardsofdalaya.com/index.php/Kelia_Tolborn's_Antiques
Which charm do you think a caster should get before they start investing in augs, or do you think it's just a matter of the tier you're at? I mean, after charm of balance (or w/e) the next charm costs about 35k. The benefit you get from say, charm of sihala over charm of balance is +2 FT, +30 hp/mana, +10 to wis (supposing it's not capped), +10 AC and +30 sv disease (but don't forget -5 cha).
I guess type 5 EQ augs are pretty expensive (400-550 each) but type 2 augs (not something druids use a lot I guess) and type 3 augs are pretty cheap, around 200 each for EQ augs. And there are always superior type 5 augs, although I don't really remember how much they cost. Isn't it around 200?
There's something like 18 aug slots, and to make things cheap and simple, lets say each one gives 24 mana and costs about 200 plat. Augging out your whole set of armor will cost you 3600 plat at this rate, and will give you roughly 432 mana. 3600 plat is close to 1/10 the cost of the next charm, and 432 mana is about twice as much as you would get from the charm, counting flowing thought and wisdom. So I dunno, is ~200 mana really useless fomelo epeen? And if mana is useless fomelo epeen, then what is a charm? And for that matter, what does this talk about fomelo epeens even mean?
Now, I guess the argument for not augging early on is that you're going to be flying through gear so fast that you'll be wasting your money buying new augs all the damn time, whereas money dropped in the charm fund is basically an investment you get to keep for the whole game (minus the small amount lost in the charm rebate). That argument seems to depend a lot on how fast you're getting loots, rather than on what point you're at in the tiers, since the cost/benefit for an aug really only changes depending on how long you're going to keep it, not on what it is going in to. I don't really remember much about the really low tier game of maps and pugs and what-have-you, but lets say you get 18 upgrades/month. That is, you basically upgrade every piece of gear you have in a month. That seems pretty fast to me, but at this rate, you're still only spending 3600 plat/month to maintain the +432 mana that comes from augs. At this rate, by not augging your gear, you would save 36k in ten months, which would buy you your new charm. So you'll spend ten months at basically -432 mana in order to gain basically 200 mana at the end of it. And that's at the more or less preposterously fast rate of 18 upgrades/month. I guess the big pay off is that if you save your charm plat, you never have to worry about flushing away your hard-earned video game dolars, which will now stay with you all the way until your 1.2 million plat uber charm.
I know this is all seems like making a mountain out of a molehill, but it bugs me a bit when old-timer players give new players advice that basically makes sense from the perspective of investing a huge amount of time raiding and farming and what-have-you. Honestly, here is my advice for new SoD players: If you are getting more than 18 items a month and you are worried about how buying augs will eat in to your charm fund, or if you find yourself thinking about using the words fomelo epeen, then stop playing SoD and go outside.
ps: I didn't really check this math and I am bad at math, but I think I'm probably still within the ballpark of making sense even if some of the numbers aren't exactly right.
tl;dr
buy cheap augs, don't worry about charms
