Playing a strength based warrior, I was offered all kinds of balanced and magic and based weapons. In any case, I used swords at the start of the game, then switched to axes, as they had better damage. After getting the battle tower I switched to hammers (started using Barnabus' hammer right away, then a little while later found another hammer that was better than my axe), and towards the end of the game was back to a sword/axe combo.
If you have not visited a merchant since you last leveled, you can save before running your crosshairs over them, then trade, and reload if you don't get offered something useful. This can also be handy fighting boss type opponents that always have something decent, if you save just before finishing them off.
Unless you really need to upgrade something, though, I would limit the number of reloads. You don't want to waste a bunch of time trying to get the best possible loot, and then just end up finding something better a couple levels later anyway.
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