I think you should be able to choose which gear you keep after a fight. Then after you choose, probably only up to your 1 hour of immunity or maybe even 5 hours or something, others can go to the battle site and scavenge what they want. This helps small and poor factions. -4 gear, when you have nothing isn't so bad. -4 gear, when you have over 200 items and want to be able to access your ranged gear is horrible. After 24 hours, the battle site should disappear and whatever is left is destroyed. Hell, if you don't want trade goods because you're a war party about to siege a city and don't want to be slowed down, you wouldn't have to take them and someone else could pick them up.
That way, it's not like you can just ditch stuff when you see a pursuer. and want to go faster. You should be held accountable for poor planning.
