I would try to be brief in this as much as I can and with my bad english as usual
I tried alot of MMO's the last decade and I choosed to stay in Entropia Universe mainly for two reasons:
1. The MMO Entertaiment and the sandbox part of the platform/universe!
2. Ther real cash economy system.
Entertaiment (fun) experience.
Some examples are the user interface, third person view, avatar animation (looking aged now) and the social part of the game, such as interaction with others, events, expeditions and occassionaly in world parties.
It's useless to get into details for all the above categories but at least for the issue we talking right now I can say this.
I'm one of those who found items in world, randomly and during events also and while I was newbie. Those items came from some wonderfull people who loved to share, giving away and make surprises.
I like to see new players to experience the same, because it's a great feeling and make people to stay longer in this game and have fun.
Entertaiment and the sandbox experience it's under questioning from my point of view for many reasons and for long time now, not only from this latest change of MA dev team.
This decision about "dropping things" simply adding more to the negative side.
As about performance excuse, I'm not of those who believe it will help. (just my personal opinion!)
*at least at ROCKtropia I don't see any difference.
I'm still falling through my estates floor and still see my shop vanished every time I'm doing work in it. Also my inventory, my storage and my shopkeeper in the shop still appear with great latency. That's something I experience for couple years now.
So I vote, bring back the whole "drop item" thing.