D2 veteran tries his hand at D1

[LennyLen]

One square away from the TP i realized "doh, I forgot my staff" and clicked on it. I saw it spin in the air due to no room, then I entered the TP due to the earlier click. When I returned to town, the staff was gone  argh, anyone know why?

This is a reasonably well known bug. It's very annoying and the only way to sop is to be careful when picking up items near your TP.

Since I found a King weapon in normal/hell, does that mean that drops doesn't improve in the later difficulties? I've understood that King is the best damage prefix, so...

You are correct, the drops will not improve with later difficulties. At least not in the lower levels of the dungeon. There are a couple of items that can only drop on the very early levels of NM and Hell difficulty however.

The highest +damage prefix is actually Merciless, which can reach up to +175% damage, compared to the maximum +100% damage of King's. Generally, King's is preferred however as it also greatly increases to-hit as well.

What are the "recommended" spell levels (roughly) for hopping around in nm/hell?

Also, what spell levels (again, roughly) is recommended for hell/hell?

Sorry, I can't help you here... I just always go with whatever slvls I have by then, and it usually seems to work out. :)