The sages do move around. There's actually documentation on the wiki about it. The reliability is, as many things go, dependent on the reader.
And yeah, I agree with keeping items. They don't cause any weight burden, unlike some games (Actually I'm surprised that having all those items doesn't cause some sort of fatigue penalty. Don't take that as a feature request.) and they can be used in a pinch for gold. Or in the case of honey and beer, they decrease fatigue in increments of 2 per use (From what I have observed so far) without taking away from your time pool. Those are mighty useful items.
