For bards:
I started kiting at lvl7. As long as you have selos, you can kite. It just gets much easier at 18.
For gear: I'm using some hand-me-down MM drums and "a horn". The horn is off a bard guild merchant and the drums I think sell for 100pp-ish in EC, maybe even less. Lute of gypsy princesses (pretty close name), also sells for 100pp-ish (or hand-me-down) and is useful for your L2 chords dot. But honestly, you can pick up some drum/lute/horn from the bard vendor that has a 1.8-2.0 mod (lute and MM drums are like 2.1 mods) and be 90% as effective. As far as armor, you can kite naked if you want to, armor just helps you when you do get hit (which once you get to OT range (20s-30s), if you get hit you're probably going to get stunned and die whether you have full singing steel/lambent or not).
Here is where I have leveled so far. Its not definitive by any means (like there is a good derv camp in WC I didn't mention).
http://www.project1999.org/forums/sh...09&postcount=8
You were also wondering if you would feel progress with the bard: Yes, yes you will. If you think soloing as a necro is the fast-lane to higher levels, then bard AE kiting is like taking a personal helicopter. I challenge any other class to tell me they did 37-39 in 2hrs or less (I did them in 1.5hrs, but the server gods blessed last Sunday night with 25% bonus exp.).