I've had some bad experiences with them in DCSS too, but mostly because of trolling of sorts that isn't as possible in Demon.
I'll never forget the time during a tournament win-streak my poor Deep Dwarf Fighter ran into a ghost on D:3 that was capable of spamming Lightning Bolts. I judged I could not safely run from the thing so ended up meleeing it since that cuts the use of special abilities to 50% at most. I won, but had to burn most of my starting wand of heal wounds charges. Not happy.
That sort of thing isn't really possible in Demon though: you don't start with (and can't find early) truly overpowered things like that. You can definitely get lucky and find something helpful, but not to the degree of chucking Lightning Bolts on D:3 in DCSS.
But, enough about me, what is it that you don't like about them Sandman? I should note I'm not opposed to making them optional (I may have to anyway, people already sometimes object to the little bit of server communication Demon already does, and this would mean more of it), just curious what your reasons are.