The candles were the only reason to do the tutorial dungeon, so it saves about two hours of tedium.
The reason to do the tutorial dungeon is that you get over halfway to level 2. Then you just kill the drunk guards at the bridge and presto, instant level 2.
The dungeon takes about 15-20 minutes. Not sure where you pulled 2 hours from.
Paintings sell for around 450g each, and there's plenty to steal in Cyseal.
Without these, though, I have no idea how I could make the money to buy skills or gear upgrades.
Money is a bit slow in the beginning unless you have pickpocket, but even without sneak/pickpocket skills you can just "sneak" around town (mostly inside) and loot things. The mayor's office, the library upstairs, Arhu's study, etc. If you scavenge around in the world you'll find enough to sell to get your money rolling. I had like 30,000 gold by the time I finished the beta section, and that included spending lots of money on things along the way.
Also its pretty easy to loot the cyseal villa when you are level 2 or 3. Just avoid the level 7 skeletons and you can get several chests worth of high end loot to use or sell.
I find having a few points into Lucky Charm helps find extra goodies. Just make sure that character opens up things so it will have the chance to have a "lucky find"
