I've run the pit with a multitude of characters; chances are, if they can't run Pit, I probably won't keep them around. I once found an eth t-maul/5os eth berserker axe.. one right after the other. My jaw dropped.
I've found several Leviathan's, lots of decent socketables.. rarely ever run it with more than 150-200% mf. Unique's aren't worth a whole lot anymore, unless they're something that's so stupidly rare they're almost impossible to find [ie: tyraels, eth. dcleaver].
It definitely pays off. I find going into hell baal games (as they're mostly bots, atleast on east), and doing it works well. If you've got teleport, you can teleport around to spawn the monsters while there's still eight people in the game. Works pretty well if you know the maps.