yea, bribing varunas for 20 each is the way to go.

Fighting one eye can get you some good gold too. As can fighting earth eater, although he's a pain.

I think auto-haste/protect/potion/pheonix is the way to go for sure. With high defense and magic defense, nothing kills you in one shot. And you only use an x-potion if you are below half health (should be 4999 or below). And you can get ~40 x-potions from the two horn monster in the sunken cave/cavern of the stolen fayth. (Forget the exact name, V something).

I'd think BHPL, auto-haste, auto-regen, and some other mixes of auto-phoenix/hp +30% would be the best option for bhpl armor. BHPL is boring and tough to get though.