Also I know that you don't want to add or change anything for the pet feature, and I don't know how this would work considering the pet's are attached to each person, but I think it would be a cool feature if pets could pick up the loot for you.
I remember I used to play another game that had this, and it was really helpful. And I think it would help the players too. If you're farming or questing and you drop items, it would help if you could go on killing, without having to stop every time something drops to pick it up.