hmm. 1) was fixed with a new item. Hooray!
As far as it goes, I make backup gear for sure. Its expensive and tedious and all that, but when you just lost all your stuff, going back fully prepped works. going back nekkid or in your spare tier 1 troll armor with a club does not. And I have one job, one goal: get my gear back so if I die again I can swap into the other set again. I will be doing that at all cost and any amount of exploiting or cheesing.