For me, it isn't so much that stealing is easy it is that you can sell your stolen items to anyone... Even the person you have stolen it from. It is more the economy that needs an overhaul than the stealing, and there needs to be much better interaction between the two systems.
A game like skyrim does it perfectly. You can steal anything that you want if you are so inclined, but are limited in what you can do with them, With many merchants not buying stolen goods for the example. As it is in DOS, it basically seems like an afterthought is nothing major, just could do with a little tweak.
