None of those items are significantly more useful from an MF perspective than simply stuffing topazes into random armor and having magic/rare gloves/etc. with MF. I really don't see any reason to run Meph except if you want a quick fix way to gear a large number of Hell viable characters. Aside from that, you might as well just hop into LK/AT and run for actual high end items rather than waste your time running Meph for items that will give you maybe 10% more MF/life/damage at best.
First of all, I apologize to you for big post, I know you love them. But if you care enough to read all, let's continue.
Since I don't quite understand everything you said, let me ask you something. You say Shako and co. wont make more than 10% improvement in MF/life/damage compared to crap loltopaz gear. Is there any "high-end" item that will make more than 10% improvement in MF/life/damage compared to gear you can fast-farm on Meph?
There are basically 3 items I personally consider worth farming in Pit or AT. Those are:
Death's Fathom - you proved that cheap AT sorc is "equally" efficient as mega-geared sorc, so I guess Fathom is not much of an improvement, except it looks useful in theory. I believe same would be proved running Pindle. Perhaps Oculus is even better choice for Pindle than Fathom, dunno.
Death's Web - fancy item indeed, but I'm not completely sure how much improvement it gets you on Pit novamancer. Probably 10-15% at most. I could fire up hoto novamancer just for lol to see how "bad" will I perform.
Griffon's Eye - nice item, but since it is usually paired with Infinity, I don't think it gives you any considerable improvement over... random circlet with facet. Or random circlet with ias jewel, whatever it's needed.
Other "high-end" items are crap. Mostly. Some of them might be useful, but very situational. The rest are only grail material, literally.
So, my questions are: since I don't think any of mentioned items will make much of an improvement over lolmephgear, do you agree with that? Also, is there any other "high-end" item I consider crap, and you consider it is worth farming in AT/Pit?
In the end, I'll answer you why is Meph >>> Pit and AT for poor player. You will get that 10% improvement from Meph very fast, then you will hit AT/Pit like a boss to farm another 10% improvement in 3 mentioned items over long long time. With farming Meph, you will delay farming "high-end" items just a very very little. Or if you go straight to AT/Pit, you will have harder time running cause you run with loltopaz gear, and it will take you much longer to get 10% improvement on that gear, and then another 10% improvement in 3 mentioned items over long long time. Or you could be lucky to get Fathom to get that 20% improvement in gear right away or something.
Also, perhaps it is 10% more MF/life/damage improvement when you farm Meph-gear, but that gear will make much much more difference and impact on running than farming any of the 3 "godly" items I mentioned. They won't do a thing for survivability or comfort of running, they will simply boost your damage a little. Also, you are very experienced d2 player and I do believe you can run AT or other target with topaz gear, but most of players I believe will really feel the difference between topaz gear and lolmephgear.
