Speaking of crashing (sorry for off-topic), DoomRL 0.9.8.10 used to crash horribly for me, usually every game. When I finally went on to send the crash reports, voila, DoomRL 0.9.9! And no crashes since! I hope the game stays like that.
Anyways, I think the challenges are intended to be hard on the top end of the spectrum, but maybe they will be balanced soon.