I rarely spend the resources to get to the very top of the spire. I'm not a good fighter and I am more focused on helping my fellowships rather than myself, and none of the fellowships I'm in focus on the spire...they are all tourney focused. I always get to the high halls tho. I can generally fight my way through the first boss, but then, negotiation starts and I refuse to dump my resources into something where the most likely outcome for me has been portal profits. I have won a few magic residences ... but only two magic workshops, which I love btw. For an FA, to be able to produce enough blacksmith badges, I need at the very least 20 teleports. So, since I don't have those, I wind up selling things that I have to rebuild. Which is, imho, a collosal waste of resources, but it is what my fellowships need to get through the FA's.
Ask yourself a question ... if you could trade your two magic workshops, all the magic residences, diamonds, and all the other things you won in the spire and get the goods, coins and supplies you spent instead, would you do it? Most people wouldn't. Yes, you need to spend a ton of goods on the spire ... particularly before you get good enough to really see the benefit of the spire. (And that's the rub ... most people get tired of spending before they see the benefit.) But if you stick with it, you'll see that overall, you are far, far better off having the workshops, diamonds, and spells rather than those goods that believe me, you'll forget about in a month once you've built up again.
As far as portal profits go, gosh, I used to hate them bitterly. Now I wonder why. I spend them like candy and will never have too many, and while it's more difficult to use them in chapter 17 than it was in the previous 7 or 8 chapters, I still wouldn't want to do without them. I'm sorry I ever dissed them. You may be glad, one day, that you have them. Depending upon which chapter you are in, you may love them. I know in my smaller ID that's now in Halflings, I'm not even bothering with settlement buildings. I'm simply using portal profits to upgrade the portal to 4 and then using more portal profits to get all the research done. Easy breezy lemon squeezy, and I don't have to rearrange my city except for the portal.
As for me in the spire this month, I have to admit I'm extremely tired of Watchful Winter Owl artifacts, lol. I don't need a couple dozen of those and it seems that's all I ever get. Note that I said SEEMS ... because of course that isn't true. I win diamonds, dwarven armorers, and other good stuff. But it's human nature to think that "all" you win is the thing you don't like, when if you actually wrote everything down over the course of 3 months (a good amount of time to judge properly), then you'd see you won a heck of a lot of other things, too. (And owl artifacts do give a lot of spell frags when you need them for a quest.)
Of course, the most valuable things are on the second and third levels, not the first. So if you only get to the high halls without fighting froggie, you'll be missing so much. I am glad you're reconsidering what Crackie said ... it was good advice. And I wish you the best of luck!