Just try around with items and see if you might just overlook a good common item. The strenght of an item does not just come from raw stats, but also the space they are using. For example, the club is extremely good since it has -1 weakness against multihits, does same damage as wooden sword and frees one space.
Consumes are also great just to make the floors easier. 12 dmg to all, 6 poison, all the extra turns. This makes it possible to easily farm the floor usually to get a better powerspike for the next floor.
Reorganizing regulary for optimise item synergies and taking temporary items like machete, even if you throw it away next round, can greatly change how well you are doing, especially early game.