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Item level is a more important hard limit.
If a character has some extra items that are a couple of levels lower than their character level - maybe a backup weapon with some outdated runes, or a held item with some cool niche use ability - that isn't going to be a problem.
Giving them a blank check to go shopping with and letting them get higher level items will cause balance problems.
Also, assuming home game where you can adjust such things. PFS has their own rules for such things that they are unlikely to change.
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I think they are more concerned about actual cash.
Which leads me to suspect that they are trying to break the power curve of the game by getting early access to higher level items.
No one actually wants money. What are they going to do - swim in it? What they want is the stuff that money buys.
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You can give people more money than recommended, but it does make the game easier. That's not necessarily bad though. PF2 is a challenging system, and as long as people aren't getting runes way ahead of schedule you will probably be fine. It is much harder for player characters to break the game than PF1 or 5e.
Also worth noting that most adventure paths include more wealth than the tables would recommend because it assumes players won't find it all. So if your player is looking to get extra copper, they should usually take a completionist approach.
Another option to consider: the automatic bonus progression, which makes it very hard for treasure to break your game.
I think it is typical to find items as treasure that are a level or two higher than the characters. Allowing them to buy those items instead of finding them should work too. More than a couple of levels difference is probably going to be a problem.
For example: If they can afford to buy high level scrolls, there is nothing that prevents the characters from using them.
If the table as a whole wants to balance their game around that, that is fine. Just be aware of what is going to happen.
We're talking about the sort of players who will loot every dead NPC, turn over every cushion, take whatever monster or animal part that might be sellable. Completionist mentality is what I'm trying to avoid by telling them that they don't <need> to do so for a few measly more silver etc. because the tools in the game encourage me as the GM to ensure they find what they need to be successful.
Also worth noting that most adventure paths include more wealth than the tables would recommend because it assumes players won't find it all. So if your player is looking to get extra copper, they should usually take a completionist approach.
Well, one piece of good news: because NPCs are not built using PC rules, they don't tend to have items that seriously impact wealth unless you deliberately add them for a boss or something. Enemy weapons tend to lag behind what a PC would have by about 4 levels, and aren't laden with consumables or pocket change or anything by default.
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I think they are more concerned about actual cash.Which leads me to suspect that they are trying to break the power curve of the game by getting early access to higher level items.
No one actually wants money. What are they going to do - swim in it? What they want is the stuff that money buys.
For some folks, money is how you keep score and determine who is 'winning' life...
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The thing I've always wanted from a character is to be able to have the spare points to take Crafting, be a Ranger or some such class, Fighter maybe, to be in a campaign killing things like Dragons, Drakes, Wyverns, or giant beasts of some nature, perhaps Dinosaurs, even wolves and such and then use my crafting to skin those creatures and make cool armor types like "Dragonhide" leather or "Beasthide" Leather armor of some type (Hide, Brigandine as I prefer to call Studded Leather, normal Leather armor, etc..)
Same with having Mining and Crafting and Blacksmithing -> I want to find cold iron and forge my own items.
I think crafting is apparently not good, and costs too much money or something, but if someone gave me an infinite supply of money I'd spend it on trying to craft cool things from stuff I gathered while adventuring.
Unfortunately I doubt this will ever happen in PFS so that part of my character fantasy will forever remain unfulfilled.
Crafting isn't bad, as much as set up to make it hard for a character to gain a significant wealth advantage over a non-crafter character (after accounting for the formula, the raw materials, and the crafting time).
That said, an inventor with both Alchemical Crafting and Magical Crafting (possibly a multiclass caster archetype as well, if you want to really go "magitech") is probably a good choice for a character that can make all sorts of different items; with sufficient time.
To me the answer is simply that as higher level characters are exponentially rarer than lower level characters, so to must the higher lever gear be rarer.
You can have the money for the big fancy sword, but that doesn't mean the sword is available to buy. Maybe to access these most powerful items you have to kill someone who already has them, or network a connection to a collector of rare magical items is harder to come buy.
Basically a fluffy way to attach a certain character level/importance within the campaign world, to high level gear rather than money.
Thus freeing yourself to give them more money fi they go out of their way to get it. If they want to spam the shit of super low level common place items they can. Sounds boring but sure go for it.
But the actual powerful stuff is scarce because why wouldn't it be?
This influx of cash plus the understanding that they will find the fear they need if they just trust the process might free them up to make interesting character decisions.
Like a cleric of Pharasma setting up a college of midwifery somewhere with her big hoard of gold, or the bard that starts collecting rare and precious instruments etc etc.
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It actually is fine for characters in PF2 to occasionally get items much higher level than them, and happens pretty frequently in APs. The thing about character wealth in PF2 is that it flattens out on its own. A level 1 character that started with 50 gp is not noticeably different than anyone else at level 5.
What the player is probably more bummed about, even without knowing it, is that the GM should be checking in occasionally and making sure every player is within a level or 2 of recommended WPL, and that if a players is high on that chart, but just from horsing items they never use, that might be as big a problem as a character significantly under. Wealth in PF2 is not money in the real world. As a GM, you need to make it a renewable resource that has a general soft cap that will always jump up faster than players can “game” by being financially prudent.
Consumables are almost always a better way of getting early access to item bonuses earlier than runes/permanent items. Saving up for runes often means being behind the power curve until you have jumped past it by a level or two and have more wealth than you know what to do with.