Percentile values are weak early on and strong(er) later in the game. And yes, gold bonus is rather useless, even on impossible you probably get enough gold, hence I gave it to Googlik who has a +5 intelligence bonus (which is a whooping +50% to spell efficiency!). As for experience I'm not really sure, I find that a good bonus but yeah, it seeems like a waste of an item slot, I'm considering adding a more effective bonus, or at least double the gain.
Oh and as I understand it, there won't be any spouse system in the "expansion" (let's face it, it's a sequel
), so there won't be any babies to worry about (can't really fight when you're pregnant, now can you?).