how much do you value stealth in the endgame?

[Sky]

assume no aggravate. let's say you are running an endgame melee character, plenty of TO, grinding the dungeon for gear / xp. your daily business is cleaning graveyards. would you still take a boots of elvenkind +2/+8 over a boots of speed +10? would you trade +4 stealth on a cloak over +1 STR ? would going from stealthoor to fair be worth 20dmg/round?

[Grotug]

I think fair stealth is plenty. Sometimes it's annoying having too much stealth, because the sleeping whatever is blocking the awake thing you want to TO at the far end of a hallway. That said, I tend to get hung up on stealth when I get a string of gear buffing it (it's kinda fun going for legendary stealth), but it really isn't that necessary. Fair stealth is good enough. Even bad stealth is fine if your @ is boss. I think aggravating is too dangerous but sometimes bad stealth works out to your advantage if your @ is really strong.

[Philip]

Assuming you can kill or easily remove everything you meet, I would value Stealth about as much as you value your time. 4 Stealth does seem more useful than 1 STR, even on a melee character, though it depends if you're at max blows. In case you're not familiar with how Stealth works, +3 stealth makes things wake up half as fast. Whether you want to get rid of 2 speed depends a lot on how much speed you already have, but most likely you get enough extra power out of the 2 speed that somewhat fewer forced interactions with monsters isn't worth it.

EDIT: An important thing to realize is the effect of Speed on monsters waking up. The fewer turns you spend around monsters, the less likely they are to wake up. So +10 Speed is equivalent to +3 stealth. This means your actual stealth is better than it might look at first.

[Sky]

well, in the early game, stealth is very important, because i dont have to fight a ton of mobs at the same time, and i can just walk by things which are too strong - without wasting a TO from a wand or a teleport from the staff. but later on, everything seems to be awake, except those lazy dragons.

[A Magical Lamp]

The value of stealth depends on how much you have. If I'm a half troll warrior with no other stealth on my gear then adding one or two points isn't going to make the slightest bit of difference. If I've been stacking stealth a fair bit already it gets much better, one or two extra points can mean one or two less scary situations.

[Pete Mack]

I only rarely clear graveyards (e.g. as priest or paladin with amulet of sustenance and a big-ass Holy Avenger.)

assume no aggravate. let's say you are running an endgame melee character, plenty of TO, grinding the dungeon for gear / xp. your daily business is cleaning graveyards. would you still take a boots of elvenkind +2/+8 over a boots of speed +10? would you trade +4 stealth on a cloak over +1 STR ? would going from stealthoor to fair be worth 20dmg/round?

[Philip]

I only rarely clear graveyards (e.g. as priest or paladin with amulet of sustenance and a big-ass Holy Avenger.)

I don't often bother as a priest, much less so as a paladin. High undead are just that annoying. With mages I Banish for the goodies.