I personally think everything should be able to be picked up if you meet the strength requirement for it (everything should have a strength requirement on top of the things like "bow difficulty which relates to PD, or shield difficulty which relates to shield skill).
But you should get a large penalty to speed (or damage if it's a weapon). This would be nice for being able to loot items for strategus, or bring a bow back for a friend (even though I have no power draw, I should physically be able to pick up the bow). Same with a shield, you have some really strong guys out there, they would be able to easily pick up a shield, but without shield skill, they would block very slowly, and would have no "force field" around the shield.