Wouldn't it be better to make owners lose items than let it degrade away? Like losing a battle can make you lose your item while the winner can search the battlefield and claim it themselves as spoils? Or being wounded can cause you to lose your item even if you win a battle - can lose your item if it is a sword and you get your arm chopped off.
And then what, we need to track the character has lost his arm so we can assign a penalty for things like duels? If items are never destroyed then new items are never created. I'm not saying that is a bad thing mind you, its just not the current design intent. Items are supposed to have a history, then be lost and new items replace them.
