Looted weapons persistence to the next round is very annoying and incosistent ; a lot of times one picks up a javelin and doesn't have it next round, then again often it happens he picks one, throws it and next round it's there in one's inventory. Same thing with shields. I'm actually sort of discouraged towards looting shields since chances are I'm going to spawn with two next round and no weapon.
It's especially aggravating as a horseman, your lance breaks, you throw the broken half away, dismount to loot some better sword/whatever off the ground - replacing the one you have - and next round you start with two swords and no lance at all. Is it set in stone that a looted item is placed in first free slot of your inventory - replacing the lance in this case - or can you set some sort of "priority" so a horseman would never accidentally deprive himself of his main weapon by trying to get a better sword?