Although the paintings might not be the most logical choice, I think the game does need that 500 gold (or perhaps a bit more) that needs a little work to get otherwise there's pretty much no chance of getting your team kitted out with at least some half-decent equipment and skills before they head out into the marshes.
I can definitely agree that the gold is needed. It's the way it's handled that I dislike. It completely skews the economy curve to have that equivalent amount of gold sitting there for the taking with no risk. Once you get past the very loosely secured perimeter, you have the run of Fort Joy, all the Magisters are in fixed clusters elsewhere. You're starved for resources early on - and rightfully so - but once you're inside, you get a windfall.
In addition, as I've said
elsewhere many times ad nauseum, paintings are not something which people on this island should have any interest in buying. Prisoners can't eat them and can't use them. At best, they might use the paintings to patch holes in their tents, which would put their value in about the 1 gold range given all the other canvas sacks lying around. Guards shouldn't buy them, they are obviously stolen. Seekers shouldn't buy them, they have bigger problems like how to get the hell off the island.
The one thing about painting they can do is to make them harder to pick up. At the moment, rank 1 Telepathic is enough and make STR a joke for picking up items. They do need to be expensive though because they clearly are made from material that aren't cheap and those are the expensive part.
See my paragraph just above.
And cash cycle in this game is 100% pickpocket atm, which depends on your base level. Not sure about Thievery level but it averages around 60-80 gold per character base level.
The game's economy should be reasonable for players and parties who don't methodically pickpocket everyone, if only because you're not guaranteed to have a Rogue in the party (and because of the famine of Civil points available even if you do have a Rogue).
