I logged in today to find a gift from someone named Aiden had been stolen by thieves. My character had been wielding the spear. I only have just learned to get around exile, and barely just figured out what the world map display image is. I'm still really new. From reading I can see the goal is to prevent hoarding on older players, but this only penalizes your newer players. Let me explain this as best I can...
Given, a younger player somehow acquires a decent weapon either via gift or purchase after working their butt off gold coins at a time.
Given, the player might get some use of it. They log out with it equipped and not sitting in inventory.
Given, they log in to find it was stolen by thieves.
In this scenario first, you have an angry newbie. Something gifted to them has disappeared leaving them with no weapon. Its more frustrating however if they ground coins for a week or two to buy the weapon themselves. If a newbie gets past this initial frustration, they have to figure out how to get a new weapon in a price range they can afford. Not everyone is available and expecting someone to drop what they are doing to give you money or walk you to a blacksmith (if you have no clue where it is which is probable on newbies) is undesirable.
"You can get another weapon" isn't really a good answer here - because sure you can. But if you have to spend two weeks getting coins every time to replace the weapon (after spending what coins my may have left to get a weapon to work with) or a piece of gear, OR annoy a veteran every time it happens (some of us don't like bothering people regularly), your newbies will be frustrated with thieves and go away.
The best I can offer is to set a threshold where thieves can begin taking things, while not making your newbies gear-less. Sort of like the death threshold just not limited to the academy phase. Mules are dealt with already by multiplaying rules, so I would not expect people creating alts to stash their stuff to be a non-punishable issue.
I hope the admin will consider this feedback provided. Cheers.