I've played through insane and recently played through evil again. Thought it might be a decent way of making np but the evil prize prices are much more deflated than they used to be and 2/4 prizes are crap, so I'm pretty much done with the game.
It might not seem fun at first, but you can get into it and the insane prizes are worth it, although it does take a long time. I wish we were allowed to go through the progression (normal/evil/insane) again after insane for additional insane prizes. I guess that would deflate the prices though. Personally, since shops are down, I might go play nq1, which I haven't played in like 4 years but if I recall is a much harder game. Edit: Oh, and the trophies are nice.
Well, I finished nq1 on evil the other day, and for those interested in my opinion, it's a much more difficult game than nq1. Not even interested in playing it on insane because I know I'll die several times and the gold trophy isn't worth it for me. It is a little bit smoother than nq2 though; through spam refreshing you can move and battle faster, although spam refreshing during battle will often get you killed if you're careless. (as happened to me many times) I would not recommend holding down f5, though, since it might draw attention for "bug abuse." (even though the alledged "bug" has been around/ignored for several years)
just finished going through normal,evil, and insane, got armor polish, scuzzy comb, and sword, and a spiffy trophy, finished insane one morning and account was frozen that night when i got home from work.
find a good game guide http://digifort.com/idnq/index.php a good trainer and good script files plan on spending a total of 10 or more hours to finish each difficulty level