while i dont want a perma pet around.... you could look at how Torchlight 2 handles bag space... I can send my pet with a full bag back to town, a timer counts down, and eventually the pet comes back.

Now change that 'pet' into a "Henchman, servant, pet, sidekick, random npc #3" I want t oempty my stuff on the go, I can give up say 10% of my profit on what i would make, the npc appears, takes my unwanted loot, leaves for say 10-20 min depending on the amount of loot, and comes back with the influence/gold when the timer counts down, gives it to me, and fades away until called again.

i like the CoH auto looting, I hated dumping unwanted (but sellable) stuff mid mission because I was out of storage room
now the long cooldown is so that the above scenario is avoided, not so you can grind hours on end and never ever need to stop back in town.

i wouldnt mind having costume parts, temporary powers, emotes, titles, that sort of thing drop as well. So long as they are just additional stuff (stuff that wouldn't be in the cash shop) I remember in WoW spending a month collecting all the colored dragon whelps. I loved my collection. It took me hours to get, and very few people had it.

I honestly don't overly care how loot is done, just as long as the cash shop isnt the "best" stuff. Let me (since i plan to sub) have a place to earn anything that is in the cash shop.... or give me a stipend that works in the cash shop as a subbed player.

I remember before Email allowed you to transfer influence, i had to beg other players for Influence on a newly rolled toon. Sometimes asking them to help me transfer some influence to a lower level toon. I really hated that. But what I found most usefull at that time.. was drops that i collected, i was able to sell at Wentworths for a decent amount, just enough to get new SO's slotted. I was glad that High level players were willing to spend a bit more for those drops, which made my life easier.