It's a good thing we have so much IVAN development going on that it doesn't really matter if this one is linux-only. Unfortunate for me because I doubt I'll be getting rid of my windoze anytime soon.
My first character just died of hunger. He found the aforementioned (broken) sapphire knight sword +2 in UT 1 in the first room I walked into (accurate, 4-7 damage while broken). In UT 2 he found a mithril dragon cuirass (av 22). The rest of the UT was a breeze. I know I got really lucky, but it all comes down to what Izzy posted above.
[23:45] BDR> ...now not only can I still not reset my password for my original account, my bugged account isn't logging in either.
[23:46] BDR> (I logged out to test the reset function - now for some reason the password that worked doesn't! FANTASTIC)
[23:47] BDR> Someone tell cap as much as I hate to do so I'm not registering a third account to get around this problem.