>2) Having to wait for your items to decay vs. recovering them
>at your corpse is supposed to be bad.

Agree. Though often it is just lame, not bad
Also newbies running around with hero eq don't add much to the game.
Maybe put some sort of protection against pit spammers.
Something like:
- bystanders may only get pit items one by one with a small lag if these items aren't theirs.
- "get all pit" works only for the items you owned before your death.
So at least when the owner of the items manages to come to the pit alive or dead he's having upper hand in looting?