Actually, I've come to the conclusion that it's more to do with the weight than the material. A very nice diamond dagger will still fetch a poor price.
1. I believe pets following you have something to do with their intelligence and agility. Pets with higher INT such as angels will generally stick to you like... Well, you know the saying. AGI should be self-explanatory.
2. Currently wands of necromancy will turn a corpse into its zombie form if it has one.
Oh god, baduk. That is one crazy game. It's too complex even for my tastes, although the last I sampled it was years ago.
Pyk3, a standard board is about ten times bigger. I've seen games go for hours 'til the entire thing was filled up. In comparison, chess is, quite literally, childsplay.