Is Alvl=Ilvl ?

[Crystalion]

But when the item is saved with your character when logging out, the save functions cap the ilvl to a 99 max.  This may effect some items that derive their actual stats by looking at the items ilvl to set function parameters.

fwiw, iirc, when I set the gambles to only offer clubs, and duped gold (restored save files) in order to buy mass quantities, I got (what I was hunting for) slvl 11 Firestorm charges (implying a greater than ilvl 99, afaik).

This was either v1.10 beta or early release (I suspect beta). The slvl 11 didn't "morph" from save/load. I do not recall the #charges changing either.

edit: OTOH, this was a long time ago, so perhaps I only got slvl 10 from gambles and slvl 11 from the regular shop and am merely misrembering (I am certain, however, that the slvl 11 charges of Firestorm I did have on a club persisted across save/load).