PSA: Looks like the default for the unused dip switches changed at some point. I was playing on wolfmame238 and that version defaults to all OFF instead on ON. That version also seems to suffer from some kind of slow down during game play which actually seems to make it harder. I've switched to using wolfmame183 for this one which seems to play at a consistent speed, but you still have to change all the dip switches to ON too.
The main difference I see is that with the unused dip switches OFF, you only get one free man at 200K. With them OFF, you get two free men, one each at 10K and 50K.
My guess would be that game difficulty is also altered by those dips somehow.
Well, I did manage to up my score earlier today.
But words cannot describe how much I hate this game. It is truly awful in every sense of the word.