THe chances of the pit are hte same, no patches have been made to change the monster lvls.
Valuabe items are the Death's Fathom, eth Death cleaver, and few other ladder godlies. Gc's with +1 to skills and 40+ life are going for 30x 3/20/20 each. 3/20/20's are poppling like balloons though.
Mostly items that are found on Ladder only are godly, due to the fact that they are very limited in numbers on normal. Runes are the "currency" nowadays, with vex, ber, ist, sur, cham, Lo, and a few others being the "hi" runes that everyone wants. Be prepared though, "godly" items can go for upwards of 30-40 "hi" runes...