It is possible, but when destroyed you don't end up with sticks and stones (and lumps), it's just gone.

Change material for equipment first, hands down. You can never have enough armour, as demonstrated by Freelance Berzerker's Dwarven Bite of Death.

As for limbs, again, whatever you happen to need at the time. Personally I'd go legs first, better agility means better maneuvrability.

As for wishing I find myself often wishing for amulets of life saving, I don't often get too far and thus don't have much to clone

As for armour that really depends. If you're using artificial limbs you could even handle adamantine plate mail. Otherwise chain mail provides an excellent middle ground. As mentioned octiron is an excellent material, but there are many other good options. Dragon hide is good for boots and gauntlets if you can't find SoCM and unicorn horn provides good defense for low int requirement. Sometimes you can find ommel bone/tooth plate mail early on, those are excellent. The best are valpurium and golden eagle feather, hands down, but that's obvious

As for ideal weapon set... Well, I tend to go with whatever I happen to find, but my best characters often have flaming swords.

That's true, but scrolls of golem creation tend to be rare. Another excellent method is wands of lightning. Those you'll find plenty of, and they tend to target limbs.

It's actually not too hard to figure out. By the time you're half-way through UT it's pretty clear because your strengths would have gained 3 or more points even with no training.

I went inside the wall, so they couldn't see me, planted big mines, broke a wand of teleport, and waited for them to step on it.

I laid big mines and the tourist stepped on it, hence his head/arm/legless-ness, and I won.

...

Wow, you're right. They survive whatever happens in there too, somehow.

Nope, I just tested it. You keep your artificial limbs in the arena.

No, but unless you have massive leg strength with which to kick down the walls, you won't be getting to them any time soon.

I know