The Merchants offer a variety of items, belts only get sold at higher levels (level 7+ I think). Rings are sold, I even found a legendary ring sold once.
I agree you have to steal to survive, but why don't you like stealing in a video game? Are you confusing real life with game mechanics?
There are enough foes and quests etc to get you comfortably to level 8 in the beta, to hit level 10 you need to murder people. You can also kill foes 1 level higher without too much trouble so sometimes you'll need to fight higher level enemies.
