One thing I noticed... on the game statistics page, VANDAM has a higher career average then Tormuse(o_O)... he only played 6 games, to be sure, but... perhaps this lends some legitimacy to his claims relating to normal DRL?
Perhaps... It's hard to say because that list contains all games across all versions of the game and I'm finding there's a sizeable leap in difficulty between versions. (For example, I'm finding the shotgun to be *a lot* less reliable in this version; it seems to be affected by my accuracy rating and I can't count on it to hit my enemies even if they're right in front of me!) :| Also, I think it's worth noting that 3000 points isn't terribly hard to get, (your last game came pretty close!) and my "career average" includes all my short-lived attempts at a melee build.
I am sure that Vandam is an excellent player. However, I am also still fairly sure that Vandam's accomplishments are exaggerated.
EDIT: And thus motivated by spite, I decided to try to raise my average to see if I can get above Vandam's. :D One of my better games, I got number 3 on the high scores list! :D
Some interesting things: In this version, the order of the special levels seems to be randomized; I got Gotcha! as the third special level, Spider's Lair as the fourth, and Hell's Armory as the fifth. Interestingly, it seems that even though I skipped facing the Cyberdemon and Spider Mastermind the normal way, it counted them as defeated (with overlapping text on the mortem screen) because I got them in Gotcha! This somehow caused me to be facing Kornel after level 5! O_o I was not prepared to face him and was barely able to lightly wound him before he finished me off.
EDIT2: That's odd... It's not displaying my latest game on the stats page! Is there a delay before it shows up or something? :|