Good luck, because the gear is scattered among your inactive companions, or the chests that might be locked to you in co-op.

This has explicitly been changed this patch.

It’s just inconvenience kept for the sake of following some arbitrary rules.

It’s on one hand a BG throwback and more.importantly a minor impediment to the time-tested tactic in Larian games of “barrelmancy.” Look up some Telekinesis runs on Divinity:Original Sin to see why.