I've played RO for too long to understand this kind of mecanism... It basically is useful for two reasons:
1) It prevents speculation and inflation based on "playing the market", what consists in buying items and selling them for higher prices.
2) It's also a money sink, what prevents inflation.
Yep, it's there for a reason and that reason is to prevent a few people from taking over the market and manipulating it to rip the rest of us off, and also as a money sink to keep prices in line with cashflow.
It also incetivizes you to work on your own gear progression since selling gear won't make a ton of cash, and buying it is expensive, so you grind out your own stuff. This is instead of letting people just sell a bunch of useless junk at inflated prices, make a ton of cash, and buy endgame gear without really playing the game very much.