Despawned Items have a chance to become buried in nearby Sand and Gravel

That way there would be less of a penalty when dying in some situations and not finding your items in time while also not causing lag. If there is no unsuspicous sand or gravel nearby all items simply disappear. Maybe to make this less of a niche feature add suspisous dirt, red sand, mud, soul sand and soul soil as well and have up to a stack of items in a single block. I think that perhaps not all your items should become buried so that there is still some loss overall. Unstackable items would have a chance of disappearing while stackable items' count would also be reduced. 

I think it would especially be really cool on big servers where you could find the remnants of a griefed base to see what kind of items where stored there. Or a wheat farm where you forgot to burn all the seeds you didn't need. Maybe you found someone elses enchanted netherite armour lost in a battle? There are so many opportunities to add lore to your own world.