I think dropping full inventories is ok, as long as the good stuff doesn't get more common.

But about the eating - as long as it's easy, it's fine. I like that everyone would drop corpses and only cooking would make them really edible, but then cooking has to be really easy.

IMHO, creatures should drop everything (even their corpse). We should respect creatures as individuals and preserve their right to leave a corpse :) Both items and corpses should have damage points. Items should get degraded relative to the amount of damage taken (fine iron dagger => iron dagger => crude iron dagger => lump of iron) and maybe even rendered unusuable and transformed into chunks of material from which they were made (for recycling... lumps of metal => melted into metal bars) How much material there will be should depend on the weight of the item.

Also how much meat you can disect from a corpse should depend on its weight and battle damage taken. The type of damage inflicted should also matter.
Piercing damages the body deeply, it goes through the flesh and therefore damages the corpse greatly.
Blunt weapons damage bones, but the flesh shoul be okay (im not a pathologist, so i dont know for sure).
Poisoning results into the flesh being devourable only with poison resistance or imunity.
Scorching the victim to death could cook the flesh right away :P (not very realistic but what the hell...).
Acid burnt bodies shouldnt be edible (maybe with acid resistance or imunity).
Dont ask me what about magic damage... I have no clue, as for i am not familiar with the way in which magic works... Maybe its not a very good idea to eat meat that is drenched with magic. Nobody wants their teeth to be turned into colourful worms... :P

Also if the character is not a beast race (like trolls and orcs), it shouldnt be able to eat it directly (maybe with some kind of penalty, like the food being less saturating), but it should take the flesh out and cook it (making cooking a more valuable skill).

Furry animals like wolfs or bears should also leave fur to be harvested (only if killed by piercing, blunt damage, poison and maybe with magic). Fur shouldnt be droppes right after the death, it should be pulled of the corpse (maybe another skill). I can imagine that fur from a ninetailed fox can be very valuable, but only if pulled of with skill...

Naturaly, skeletons should leave bones, dragons scales, golems the material from which they are made of etc...

As for the burdenability of the character, I am always very surpised to see, that game developers find it perfectly plausible (no offense, Plausible :P ) for a character to be able to carry two sets of plate armor, five daily rations of food on its back, along with its full equipment while fighting a dozen of whatever creatures... If I were a warrior, I would be happy to have some food a spare weapon and a dairy to write into, so my heroic acts would not be forgotten, even if i die :P I couldnt believe my eyes, when my character carried a full-size anvil and had enough space and strength to carry another two o_O ?

IMHO the character should have a very limited inventory. But what with all the stuff i dont want to get lost, you say? Either have an animal to carry it for you, or take a cart with you (or build yourself one), or (my favourite) build yourself a secret stash, where you hide your stuff, so you can come later, and take it with you. I admit, its not a very good option, if the dungeons get larger than 10 or 20 levels, but i think thats the way, the world should work. Strong carry animals would be a better option. If they get killed, hide your stuff in a stash, that you carve into the wall, and come back with another carry animal or a cart. It would be very recommendable to have many shops in dungeos (although this is also very unrealistic), so that the player does not have to carry the goods far...

Therefore if you want to make a living by collecting and selling armor and weapons from fallen enemies you have to find some means of transportation to drag them to the nearest shop. But IMHO, roguelikes arent about earning money...

It is questionable if this would enhance gameplay. It depends on whether the players will consider it annoying and bothersome OR challenging.

Those were my two cents...

I have a much better solution, one that might cover all of the issues, here.

1. There is always a corpse, but corpses don't always have any consumable meat available. You don't pick up the entire corpse, just the excess meat. For "ordinary" creatures that are large (such as Ogres), this meat would then be automatically cut up into "portions of ogre meat", etc, while smaller creatures (giant rats, goblins) might only produce a single portion. Most creatures would generate at least one portion, but often this will have minimal effect on satiation.

2. Monsters would have an inventory and a set of equipped items. Inventories would be "dropped", which would include typical loot. Equipped items would remain on the corpse, sometimes badly damaged, but sometimes in good condition.

3. Typical equipped items for monsters would be predefined for that monster, and would generally be low quality and weak, with minimal sell value and wouldn't be accepted by gods. For instance, goblins would typically wield a "goblin club", which is little more than a stick. Occasionally, though, a quality item would be generated on a goblin, which you would only be able to find by examining the corpse carefully, with the time being dependent on what you're doing with it. Such a goblin would also be more difficult to beat in a fight, as the equipped item would actually benefit that goblin.

4. Obtaining monster equipment and portions of meat should take time compared with picking up dropped inventories, and should require a separate command. Also, if the PC is "Hungry" or worse, it should be possible to eat directly from a corpse's body (or, if a troll or other creature who wouldn't balk at eating directly from the corpse, unsatiated); but if not hungry, you would have to cut the corpse into portions of meat first. It should also be possible to pick up the entire corpse, as a quicker act than examining it, for later examination (or quick eating, should it be necessary over a longer period).

5. Corpses that in ADoM gave special bonuses (like fire resistance, etc) would instead have a particular portion that gives the bonus. For instance, perhaps it is the eating of a "portion of troll heart" that will give the boost to healing, or a "portion of ogre muscle" that has a chance of boosting Strength. In many cases, it would be a heart or a brain (kobold shaman brain for +1 Ma). Portions that do not have any chance of special effects would simply be called "portion of <monster> meat/flesh". And if the monster died of poison, sickness, etc, then the portions would have a high chance of having that same status (so don't just go eating portions of that goblin you just killed with your poisoned knife - better check first to make sure it's not poisoned).

6. Some meats would be edible when cooked, but carry disease or otherwise be inedible when uncooked. Other meats would be edible in any circumstance, and others would cause problems even if cooked first. And some special portions might have a higher chance of special effects if cooked, while others might have less chance (cooking an ogre muscle would make it more tender, so the possible strength boost would be less likely, but a troll heart might be even better if cooked).

7. Certain notable corpses would have more interesting meats. Flesh golems could perhaps consist of the meats of multiple types of monster, with a chance of some of the portions being special portions (perhaps you could find a troll heart and an ogre muscle amongst the portions). Zombie portions would have a high chance of simply being diseased meat, but a small chance of being healthy meat of some creature. Occasionally a Steel golem would actually leave a piece of metallic flesh, which would be edible under the right conditions.

I like this idea. Voted for.

By making common items truly common, their worth is exceptionally low except to the desperate/creative player. Certain items can be completely ignored (i.e. the dirty rags goblins use for clothing) but their weapons can be used but no shop is going to pay coin for it. Shops should have specific criteria for items they are willing to buy since most wouldn't bother taking all those clubs off of you.

Corpses should experience some of the recommendations risen from this issue. Helping to increase the value of cooking not only gives a skill rarely used in ADOM (given the strict skill/tool requirement unavailable to most PCs) more attention but also more flavour. *zing*

The idea of both corpses and monster inventories being vulnerable to damage/destruction/contamination greatly appeals to me. It would lead to some more creativity in dispatching certain monsters if a player knows that it will lower the chances of getting a decent haul off of it.

One more suggestion I would have is "hidden" items on a monster. If a monster is carrying something precious to itself, it could very well hide it somewhere. A perception/search check taking an extra turn (or many if it is a very large creature) to look for these items would be possible. However, I don't want to really see it turn into the "I cut open the giant frog's stomach to look for the possibility it swallowed a magic ring" to happen on every single monster in the game.

I like this idea, too. A few ways to cut down on the excess would be:

-Realistic inventory size for PCs. Carrying around 7 suits of armor, 24 weapons, 6 logs and an anvil is rather nonsense. Giving items realistic sizes and weights relative to the PC would cut down on bloat quite a bit. It would also mean that the player would need to be more judicious about what they can carry with them. Slightly unrealistic is still probably okay--we don't want JADE to be like Diablo where you have to run to town after every couple of fights because your inventory is already full. A lot of dungeons & dragons type games (eg. Baldur's Gate & Neverwinter Nights series) have full inventories for NPCs but still maintain a fairly nice balance. The downside to this would be that PCs shouldn't expect to see good items from monsters that shouldn't carry any. Animals should basically never carry any items, for example. Except maybe horns or pelts and things.

-Easier identification. ID is a pain in ADOM for most PCs, especially early on. If PCs had some (limited) natural ability to identify items--or certain items at least--on sight, this would make it easier to decide whether it is worth taking things. Maybe something like the detect item status skill in ADOM, except that it tells you something about the item's stats, although maybe not, say, enchantments.

-Gradual item destruction. One way to save on space a bit, might be to have it that items on the floor of a level get wiped over time. This might mean that players need to have access to some sort of special, safe, longterm storage for their gear, but there's really no need for the set of clothes that were dropped on day 10 to be there when you come back on day 90. If the dungeon is inhabited, something will pick those items up sooner or later, or they'll rot or whatever.

-Monsters able to use items that they carry. If a monster is carrying around a bow, arrows, and a potion of invisibility, they shouldn't immediately feel compelled to run up and bash the PC in melee like they would in ADOM.

JellySlayer, you know, every time you bring realism into roguelike game in fantasy setting, Andor kills a catgirl. After all, Strenght of Atlas spell is highly unrealistic too, this time concerning size of backpack, not its weight.
About identification - well, this one is in roguelike definition.
Item destruction - it already was in ADOM, at least to some extend. Monsters could pick up items, food rot, and finding a safe item storage was a major problem.
And last is the problem with AI. Idea is good, but. Situation with bow and !oI is simple. What about lich with scroll of turn undead? Or chaos creature with !oCC? I'm not saying it's impossible to write such AI, I'm saying it's hard enough.

Fullmoon - the AI issue is easy to mend, by merely having predefined techniques and conditions on what can use those techniques. For instance, if foe is humanoid and holds a bow and arrows, and has a clear shot at the PC, it might take it... but if any of those conditions aren't satisfied, the technique is locked out for that foe. Similarly, if a relatively intelligent foe finds a potion of invisibility, it might use it to gain the edge in a fight - but intelligence would be a condition, so you won't see a goblin, for instance, using it.

By merely locking out any "technique" that the foe doesn't satisfy, and having only a finite number of techniques, it can be ensured that nonsense situations like worms using bow and arrow or chaos creatures consuming potions of cure corruption won't arise.

Jellyslayer - easier identification in general, no. I wouldn't mind seeing NPCs that will identify gear for a price, though. Perhaps you would even be able to get a good rapport with a particular identifying NPC, and he'll give you a better price or more information.

Gradual item destruction via methods other than monsters picking it up could perhaps be done in a form similar to the case of food rotting, but have each location given a few environmental parameters. For instance, if a location has a high moisture parameter, normal steel objects would rust quite quickly, whereas a zero moisture location wouldn't have any natural rusting of items left on the ground. At a certain point, the item would just "crumble to dust", and disappear. Other environmental factors could be things like fungality, which would impact rotting of wooden items, for instance.

As for inventory size, I don't mind the idea of having a limit on the capacity of the backpack, which can be expanded in a variety of ways. Going too "realistic" would make it less fun, but placing a limitation on the unrealistic element could help to balance the game a little, and keep people from picking up and carrying around everything they find, ready to sell, even if their strength is high and they have strength of atlas. For instance, maybe the backpack starts with enough room for about 10 suits of armour or 50 swords, with swords obviously being relatively heavier compared with bulk, and armour being more bulky. At some point in the game, you complete a quest, and the reward is a magical enchantment on the backpack that triples its capacity.

Rusty steel? Like rusty copper?