I made a fuss about this on the taleworlds forum due to poor internet connectivity a month before the patch came out. You guys should have followed what was going on then, and spoke up. It IS rediculous that you can't have short play sessions, or have a semi-reliable internet connection and play. We ARE being punished needlessly, because the developers could not come up with a more imaginative way of dealing with item decay.
I could list several alternatives here, that could be implemented to make the entire system suck less. But I doubt there would be much point. Developers rarely listen to the most intelligent among their fans. And since that's me, my pleas would fall on deaf ears.