Surprisingly, many people have (for a certain definition of many). There are a lot of successful ascensions you can read on RGRN on Usenet [0].
For me, I managed to go about halfway down the dungeon before dying, maybe I'll beat this game sometimes next decade!
I found it more worthwhile to move to Dungeon Crawl Stone Soup and Brogue than beat my head against Nethack until I ascend. Something to be said for a game with a clear vision vs the kitchen sink.
Of course, NetHack literally added kitchen sinks as a game element (I think in the early 1990s) as a response to being accused of containing everything plus the kitchen sink.
Isn't "stone soup" a synonym for "everything but the kitchen sink?" Part of what gives Nethack its enduring charm is, for lack of a better work, ambiance. DCSS is fun but it is sort of a disjointed mess of stuff that doesn't always fit together very well.
They devs have ripped out so many things. There are very few "cheating" or "gimmicky" things left. They have taken out teleport evoke and teleport control along with numerous buffs. Unlike NetHack There are also very few tropes or comic relief.
IMO only brogue is the true rogue that is isn't disjointed. If you do want a whole bunch of crap .... errr content than ADOM is having a great revival on STEAM.
It's a "sneaky collaboration effort". The original tale is that travellers couldn't get any food from the nearby village, so they started a pot boiling with a stone in it. They then asked the villagers for little bits to flavor it up and after a while they had a hearty soup and just took the stone out.
How recently have you played DCSS? I find the devs have been pretty aggressive about cutting out the un-fun elements. Example: Not long ago (.16?) Trog worshipers could sacrifice corpses for his favor, but since that was practically always the Correct Decision, it was cut out and you received favor for just killing enemies.
[0] https://groups.google.com/forum/#!forum/rec.games.roguelike....