I know that a lot of people on avatar websites don't like Gaia, and extreme inflation is one of the most commonly used reasons.
I really don't understand the hate, but I think that the developers and mods are really making an effort.
Two new features have come out on Gaia recently - Alchemy and Bid Blast.
Alchemy is basically taking several (sometimes many) cheaper items and crafting them into a more expensive one. I don't do it personally because it seems like a waste of my gold, but a lot of people do. The crafting also comes with a gold fee, so it really seems to be taking a lot out of the system.
Now, Bid Blast is a MASSIVE gold sink. The devs and mods take very rare items (they've even done mini wings), and auction them off. Each bid requires a "bid ticket" which are essentially 50 gold each. Aside from that, each bid raises the price of the item by one gold, and whoever has the last bid must pay the final price for it. The final prices are obviously much lower than the LMP price, but taking the bid tickets into account, an item that sells for 700,000 gold, will take about 35 million out of the system, and that's just for one item. I think that's insane.
I have heard a lot of people say that the devs and mods don't care about the website, and I think things like this prove them wrong. They're obviously trying hard, and I think it's working. If they can just do something about artificial inflation, we'll be golden. :P