I think extending the time your stuff will drop after death would be a nice start, or even not despawning it if playing solo? It's kinda a bummer that I had to use literally 10 full reloads of ammo + 100 bow ammo up to kill the mammoth (was that health bar not perhaps a tad overkill considering you can one-shot a bear with the rifle?), then a polar bear decided to spawn in at random (I remember checking explicitly for one of 'em being sneaky) and merced me. It didn't feel like I died because I wasn't keeping watch of my surroundings, it felt like I died entirely because the game went 'haha f**k you'. I thought I might have time to craft some armour up before stuff despawned, but finally managed to get back to where I died (less than an hour later I'm pretty sure?) and my stuff was nowhere to be seen.
It's perhaps worth me noting that I had both a shovel and a rifle instantly clip into the snow as soon as I dropped them (luckily I alt+F4'd before anything saved and got the...