Maybe shafts could be replaced by crumbling stairs. For example:
- every level has 2 guaranteed stairs down, and 0-2 fake stairs
- each time they're used to go down, fake stairs have a 50% chance to crumble and send you 2 floors deeper instead of 1

I'm a big fan of the change to situationally useful potions like Ambrosia instead of strictly bad ones. I think the same thing should be done with Degeneration. Torment is usually the biggest threat in extended for any character that's not immune. It creates a huge divide between characters with Nec...