I have a sorc that was holding a fair amount of limited items, and I probably logged no more than 5 hours on him this past month. He lost some items, but nowhere near all, amongst his kept items were a limited sanc staff and hellfire wand, as well as a ward ring and 4 pieces of low-level (but still limited IIRC) icy-blue gear with innate MR.

Pretty sure armor and weapons are the highest priority when it comes to not logging enough hours. I mean I had two Iron Citadel necklaces and literally logged maybe 2 hours on that character and I kept them, but lost everything else (deservedly so).

It was changed less than a year ago in a way that was more lenient while making sure the truely valued items are still pulled if you sit on them. No, will not specify how it works.

Why does a game of this size have item amount restrictions in the first place?

Since the best items in the game simply "appear," if there was no limit the game would quickly be flooded with the best gear. The other way to manage an economy is to require time to be invested into resource gathering and crafting, so that a top level item represents hours and hours of player investment.

The time constraints that Berr was going to start putting on me now that the PK aspect started picking up was basically going to mean that I was going to go inactive, or I was going to do a lousy job, and I'm really not interested in either. I was already less than enthused at the sheer amount of time required to go through the end-game PvE content, and after finishing the iron citadel with all the changes, I think this is a good time me to bow out.

So long and thanks for all the fish!

It was changed less than a year ago in a way that was more lenient while making sure the truely valued items are still pulled if you sit on them. No, will not specify how it works.