I've dropped things on the ground in caves and gone back about 3 levels later and they've still been there. Didn't think things did dissapear if you dropped them.

yeah ive done that aswell, but ive also put aload of armour and weapons in a cabnet in the Cloud Rular Temple and have gone back and everythings gone.. didnt affect me as i had replaced it all with better stuff but i was gonna sell it...

Lets see at the moment I am relatively low with my new character since I deleted the old one. I have all mythril armour except I don't have the helm or the shield. I use a chainmail helm and a Leywain shield which I got from the count from the Mazoga quest, hehe I'm a Knight.

As for weapons, other then Deadric I pretty much have most of the weapons you can find in the game. I just started finding loads of Glass weapons unless I forgot something between glass and Daedric

Atm I'v got full elven armour apart from the helmet which is from a blackwood company guy i killed. All my armour apart from the helm is enchanted with feather.
I'v got a kvatch sheild enchanted with the sheild spell, a base ring of ageis, a ring of ageis, a ring of starlight and the spell drinker amulet.
For weapons i got a dawfvan (or how ever thats spelt) longsword, elven bow and lord rugdumths sword.

now got full Imperial Dragon Armour with an enchanted Elven Longsword and Elven bow

low level or something Badger?