Its cool that you guys like it! As for the pickup notifications…
Ideally, the UI should just be good enough that the user shouldn’t need to worry about toggles on that small of a level. Don’t get me wrong,I love customization though! (Anyone remember Warhammer Online’s custom UI tools?)
A quick fix for now could be a hide toggle since some like it and others don’t. Although, I think a nice way to show you receiving items would be to hear a sound that you got something, then there would be a little fade-in/fade-out list that you can look down at near your tool belt (I’m thinking Guild Wars 2 like). It would be out of the way so that you aren’t bombarded with UI while playing the game, but if you are interested in what you got, you can glance down quickly to see the loot.