The reason anti-hording code exists is to prevent people from grabbing a limited item and never putting it in any danger of being lost by not playing and thus ending the circulation of that item.

The reason to have limited items in the game is to create incentive to fight over those items and as a "hook" to make the game more interesting and attractive. To create a stronger feeling of power and loss when you die.

When there's 10 players left limited items are not much of a "hook" to get people to play. Not nearly as much as anti-hording and auto-delete are disincentives to play. Basically as it is, you're going to get the best gear in the game by being in the cabal with the most people under the way the system works right now, whereas if gear had more longevity it wouldn't be such an issue.

Bottom line? You're not going to lose anyone by removing item limits and auto-deletion, but it might be holding back what could be 20-50% of your potential population from playing. I'm 34 with a pretty big deal job and children and I'm not really interested in having a game where I *have* to play every week to keep my stuff. I'd happily play if those requirements were gone and I could just have a chill CF character that I could log in when I wanted to and was able to and put some hours in. At this stage of my life though I can't imagine "wasting" hundreds of hours on a hero that will go away when I get a big project at work. There's no way that the benefits of these systems is "worth it" by any objective measurement in such a population starved game.