If the corpse disappeared, the dropped items would disappear too. No?
No, once you remove them from his inventory they become unique items and aren't dependent on the actor.
There was no container neaby? So you could drop some items inside and come back later.
Not really, though I could have walked to where there was one. But it was dark and I had just gone through a series of several intense encounters, and I didn't want to take the chance of getting ambushed while loaded down. So I figured it could wait until morning when I could at least see anything that might be coming my way, and I could get rid of the load I already had on me. Too bad, I could have made quite a few caps with all that stuff.