Not totally true... there are calculations the server runs that determines both the level of items and the chances of each.
Hmmm... Maybe if I bother with my proxy I'll have it log all items dropped from monsters and make a MASSIVE database for comparison.
It would be useless but statistics can be interesting
</nerd moment>
More nerd moment time!
Would it not work if I simply log things like...
Monster which dropped item
Static item id
Bool picked or not (so if it's picked we add further info like blessed, plus, sockets, etc)
Then we will have a complete database to look at which will tell us things like item quality (on a smaller sampling of items) as well as the general type of items/level of items that drop from monsters.
Would be interesting to have simply for the hell of it.
Would also allow for a check on mobs vs number of ITEMS dropped (as well as gold, never forget the gold!)
Would finally allow an intelligent answer for "omg which mob drops most mets!" or random shit like that.