Two more ideas that have my vote (from R0hland/darkened/etc.):

1) Hotkey for character linking
I like darkened's example: ctrl+shift+# to set; ctrl+# to recall

2) Auto-pausing or auto-entering combat mode when damage taken
I'd personally add this to the "pause function" request already in this thread, so it'd be on my "must-have" shortlist. The whole "winning-a-long-battle-then-not-having-enough-time-to-heal-from-poison-before-dying" routine was getting really old.


EDIT: Hmm, I guess the below issue isn't a problem after all; don't know what happened earlier.
Also, anyone else having problems in 1.0.59 with scrolling up and down the inventory grid using the mouse wheel? It never used to be an issue for me in previous versions, but it sometimes didn't work during my brief testing late last week.