I agree. But since the way we want it to work won't work, that's why I feel that it's best simply not to have them halfass it. It's all or nothing. y'know?
I feel more comfortable with the vanilla settings in this case because it gives me an extra (minor)reason to not just steal everything. Though, guards simply
knowing which of your items was stolen is not especially easy to accept but it's magic [censored]. I ain't gotta explain [censored]. If they are not removing items, then guards should be issuing a harsh fine like, say, three time the base price of an item.
My primary reason to avoid stealing is that the owner tags which accumulate as you go along thieving annoy me. While these tags are normally not evident in the game, I know that they are there in the background adding to the clutter in my save file. In another thread, I suggested that a system be implemented to "launder"(like money laundering) items to give us an excuse to remove these tags though I don't really have any concept of how that can be designed or if it's even possible right now.