i'm not in a raiding guild and it has indeed been tough to find decent items and upgrades, however if you have the patience to either a) farm plat or b) take up tradeskilling, then cultural armor is an easy solution. you can successfully make level 60 cultural gear with a smithing skill of 220, which is decent equipment. check out EQTraders for more on that. another option is to ask around in the general channel, or friends, or even the bard channel, if anyone knows any smiths of your race that can craft the armor. here's a list of Intricate (lvl 60) cultural armor. it looks crappy at first, but once you add in a diety symbol, you end up with a nice piece of armor. cultural gear has 3 augment slots, which means you could place a nice HP aug you find in a hotzone, the diety symbol, and perhaps a aug from the Dragons of Norrath merchants to the last slot.
now, once you get up to level 70, and if you can make yourself around 50,000pp, OR if you can find a willing smith and farm the components, you can make the excellent level 70 Elaborate cultural armor. the AC on the elaborate gear is very good, the HP is alright, and the stats are all great. best of all, you don't need raids or groups to get any of it. again, read up on eqtraders for cultural armor. personally i think its the best route since it doesn't require faction farming (a la omens of war tier 1 armor), it doesn't require nightly groups of questionable returns (a la prophecy of ro armor, GoD armor) and best of all it requires no raiding! plus it gives very decent returns. 99ac on the BP, 98ac on the legs, 60ac on the helm, about 150hp on most slots. and they all have the extra two slots for augs, which is great if you know any willing alchemists who can make you some OoW augs (the dodge II/III and ferocity II/III come to mind).
as for weapons, you could camp Zoriles the Champion in Stoneroot Falls for his evolving blade, or perhaps head to MPG at level 65 and camp the mob that drops the Sword of Midwinter's Vengeance. also, get your 1.0, if you can, it is invaluable. before level 60, you could try camping or grouping in Sebilis or Temple of Droga, there's good bard weapons in there. another option is to research bard-only weapons, like the battle-drummer's main-gauche, with the percussion mod on it, or the Troubadour's Mace, with the brass mod.
as for the epic, i solod most of it, between level 50 and 65. you can even solo plane of fear for the drop from the cthulu-looking mobs if you're tricky about it. you'd need a good group or a small raid for Trakanon.. but there's lots and lots of guides on that.
good luck and have fun!
my magelo i wear mostly cultural, single-group drops, and some bazaar stuff. i'm in the same boat you're in but if you're enterprising about your skills as a bard, and you have patience, you can get pretty far without a raiding guild.