Any way to get items out of expired retainers?

[MistakeNot]

Can someone tell me why we even have to pay monthly for retainers anyway? People say it's to pay for the server space they use but even if you stop paying and then renew later, your stuff remains. Which means they're storing that data regardless of if you're paying or not. So.... I'm a bit curious. No other game I know of rents storage like this.

I'd say it for two reasons:
1) To make more money for SE
2) To limit how many people have extra retainers.

A few players having some extra retainers - used or not - won't be a big deal as far as server space is concerned. Lots of players using extra retainers could be a problem for the servers.
SE have said in the past that most players do not pay for any extra retainers.