The only real alternative to not having chests would be to suddenly apply whatever bonus effect you would've gotten at the time of the mob's death. This, of course, would piss off the anti-ruby brigade even though it's very much possible for a solo player to keep themselves going indefinitely in Abyssea. More people just makes it easier. However, this would also mean key items for pops would need to be converted to actual items then the select few quests that do involve working on chests would need to be tweaked.

Perhaps the bigger problem involving chests is the shortage of DATs if a lot of groups happen to be cleaving for whatever reason. The only fixes I'm seeing here are to either add more chests if it's possible, or we wind up with something similar to the -aga farming nerf where now only a chest would drop from the mob a kill shot was performed on. The latter would most definitely piss off people who like to cleave.