Usually money is good for 1 or 2 items of long term value, plus consumables, and it just generally piles up purposeless in the late game.
In my current game I have bought 2 scrolls of acquirement, 4 manuals for useful skills, and 2 consumables.
There’s items in the shop that I want to buy, but can’t afford, and are worth planning around. Like 2 manuals of throwing & stealth each, 1 manual of dodging, 1 more scroll of acquirement, and 2 pieces of good (for me) artefact jewellery.
I only hope this won’t be seen as an “error” that needs to be “fixed”.
Perhaps you just got lucky, yet I feel like there are more early shops.
In my current game after finishing the mines I use all the shops for identification. In the end only acquirement and experience are unknown and I no longer need identify.
I am disappointed to have only 522 gold left when I enter the bazaar on Shoals:2.
Welcome to Cemoa's Assorted Antiques! What would you like to do?
a - 11 gold a fuming pink potion
Back in 0.23 I get some games where there is more good stuff to buy than gold, so I think this is just a run of luck (especially because I don’t think there’s been a huge change in shop distribution or average contents). What’s really rare is the game where the gold neatly empties the shopping list with only a few Zorkmids left over.
So yes, maybe shops can be very good now.