The gear you have on ur monk is pretty good for their level. The stats in order of importance to me are. For suggested gear as he/she gets higher, my magelo is on the roster.
RAW HP, STA, AC, Resists, Regen, AGI, DEX, STR.
I 2box a lot though and do quite a bit of tanking / off tanking in groups. It completely depends on what you are building your monk for. One common mistake that ppl make with monks is attempting to max their STR first. That is the last stat I actually care about, because it is the easiest to buff to full.
As for weapons, I seriously prefer a good 2hb to dual wield. Your stats will typically suffer a bit, but your dps will be a far cry better. I've dueled higher level monks who choose h2h / 1hand weps because it gives more hp and stats and easily won. Leave the h2h and 1hbs to the BSTs until close to the very end game.
With the new disc's that have been given to pure melee classes (essentially melee spells), our usefullness has been expanded a bit. The discs I use most is the monk pacify line for pulling and defensive line for when FD fails or I have to off tank something and the healer is not ready, make sure you get them and use them.
Check out the FD guide on eq.castersrealm.com, it has some very helpful tips about splitting mobs when your Pacify will not work.
Hope this helps, feel free to send me a tell in game anytime if you have additional questions.
As for places a monk can go? How bout anywhere

FD is ur friend. The whole reason I started a monk was because my pally could not go see places without a group. you can safely explore damn near any zone you are keyed for as a monk.