Everquest 2: So ya wanna be powerleveled.

EQ2 Game Designer Pantharpachali has made his statements official regarding powerleveling in EQ2. It looks like all the level 200's in the world couldn't speed you through the process of leveling, although having higher level friends can have benefits, you'll still have to do the work.

This from Pantherpachali:

Issues associated with Twinking and Powerleveling go far beyond simple jealousy. If the game rules support these styles of gameplay it's not possible to determine which high level characters are "earned" and which are in fact, manufactured through close connections with powerful friends. If you have powerful friends/guildmates in EQ2 you can still benefit, but not to the extent that you can bypass content by killing encounters that are far out of your ability range, as you can in other games.

(To clarify a much earlier point, an items effective level at playtime is the min of the items highest possible level, and the expertise level of the wielder. All items have a min level at which they can be wielded, and a max level of efficacy at which they stop growing. If a sword's efficacy covers levels 20-25 and a level 35 user wields it, the effective level at playtime would be min(25,35) which is 25).