I'm pretty sure the druid takes the 3 physical attributes of the animal form (stre, dex, con) regardless of whether the caster has higher stats in that category.
My problem here isn't with druid's taking advantage of stat increases to stre from polar bear form (for example), its that the forms with a stat decrease (cat form has a stre of around 4 I believe) are ineffective/tedious to use because you become encumbered as soon as you shift.
So like I said, if you want to keep the increase in carrying capacity from those higher stre forms, I'm not opposed, but the auto encumbrance that occurs while shapshifting into a low stre form doesn't really add anything to the game, it just makes you go through tedious steps of transferring gear back and forth between uses of the form.
