I hear ya about the scepters, I did the same. I was using a war scepter and then when I got enough gems, switched to a socketed long sword that's about 70-100 damage with all the charms I have in inventory too.
Whenever I see a really sweet war scepter I might want, I'm always about 20000 short. I think they price it that way on purpose to taunt me.
What armor/sword do you have? I love seeing items in green lettering, it's what I live for.
I have the Arctic set which isn't really useful because you don't really need that much cold resist but when you put two items together you get character-level based defense. So the higher my level goes, the more defense it offers. I think I'm at 140 defense for the armor, 33 defense on the belt, on level 26. Add that to +40 cold resist (helpful against Duriel at least), and +10 to all resistances and it's not that bad. Better than anything I could buy, at least.
I have Sander's Riprap boots (+40% Faster Run/Walk, +100 to Attack Rating, +5 Strength, +10 Dexterity ), Cleglaws Pincers gloves (8-9 Defense, 16 Durability, 25 Str Required, Slows Target by 25%, Knockback), Infernal Cranium (Rarity: 700/1000, 3-5 Defense, 12 Durability, 20% Damage Taken Goes to Mana, All Resistances 10%). I don't wear them all at the same time usually, but swap them out as needed.
Now I want to go home and play.