Presumably, magic find is going to end up netting you a lot of gold (via eventually giving higher chances for rare+ items). However, focusing on increasing gold drops seems like the immediate win for a early game character (let's say for the first playthrough).
What are the pros/cons of investing in magic find over gold % early on?
Besides obviously getting better quality items I honestly invest in magic find over gold so that I can salvage the items. This allows me to stock up the crafting materials so that I can take advantage of the lower price of items from the black smith sooner. It is also a handy thing to store up so that a new character can just craft a few items for themselves as well upon get go.
I think gold in D3 is being valued more by being more rare so this may change later on, but early on I feel the magic items for salvaging will win out.
It is a good stats to have but it is not worth having it over stats that increase your progression, if you can level faster (+xp pr kill) or have an easier time leveling (base stats or damage increasing stats) you will reach max level faster. once you have reached max level you will be able to farm faster.
I look at it this way, I get a bit lower chance of getting blue items and a bit less gold while leveling, but I might reach 60 a couple of hours earlier and if I spend thous hours farming at level 60 I will easily make up for the lower number of drops/gold during leveling.
I personnaly invested in +xp items. I'm closer to level 60 than all of my friends. Auction house will rule both magic items and gold at level 60 so the fastest you get there the better you'll be.
Consider that most items you find before level 50-60 will be useless later on. They will sell for < 250 gold while white monsters will commonly drop that much gold.
