For my next campaign, I'm going to tell my players that every time they gain a level, they get one magic item of up to their new level +1, and gold equal to one fifth the value of a magic item of their old level. 1st-level characters start out with 100 gp as normal.
That's pretty close to what I am doing in my current game, except that I am capping the PCs at 5 items (more or less). Once they hit 7th level, whenever they get a new item, the lose their weakest item.
The actual rules are a bit more complex, eliminating gold from the reward system entirely. If you are interested, here are my full house rules:
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Equipment and Magic Items
Tracking money and treasure is a bookkeeping pain and detracts from the heroic elements of D&D. These rules replace treasure with magic items slots that increase as characters gain levels.
- Level 2: 1 magic item, level 3
- Level 3: 2 magic items, levels 3 and 4.
- Level 4: 3 magic items, levels 3, 4 and 5.
- Level 5: 4 magic items, levels 3, 4, 5 and 6.
- Level 6: 5 magic items, levels 3, 4, 5, 6 and 7.
- Level 7: 5 magic items, levels 4, 5, 6, 7 and 8.
- Level 8: 5 magic items, levels 5, 6, 7, 8 and 9.
- And so forth (+1 level to each slot as you advance).
As you adventure, the DM should award periodically reward you with a new magic item. In the simplest case, this can be when you advance to a new level. Alternately, the DM can give you the new item as a reward between levels, at some appropriate point in your adventures. Roughly midway through a level is a good place to award new magic items.
The new item's level should be up to 1 level better than the level you are about to gain. For example, sometime between levels 3 and 4, the DM should award a character with a new item of up to level 5. The DM should award items appropriate to the character, or simply let the player choose the new item.
Limits and upgrades: Above 6th level, you are limited to five items slots. When you gain a new magic item, you must also give up one item, usually your weakest. The simplest way is to replace your weakest magic item with a similar item that has an extra +1 bonus, effectively upgrading it to the level of the new item slot. At character level 7, you might upgrade your +1 Sylvan armor (level 3) to +2 Sylvan armor (level 8). Five levels later you might upgrade again to +3 Shadowflow armor (level 13).
Split item slots: If you want to have more than your normal allotment of magic items, you can split one of your item slots into a pair of items, both 3 levels lower. For example, at third level, you can take a pair of 1st level items instead of your allotted 4th level item. You can only split each slot once, so the maximum number of items you can ever have is ten items.
Item swapping: When you gain a new item, you also can retrain a second item, swapping it for another item of equivalent level. For example, suppose you currently have +2 chain armor (level 6) and a +2 frost sword (level 8). At 10th level you gain a new 11th level item, but decide you would rather upgrade your +2 chain armor to a +3 sword because you want to have a better attack bonus. You can then retrain your +2 frost sword to become +2 delver's chain armor (also level 8), so that you still have some magic armor.
If your retrain a split item slot, swap out both items, either for a single item or another pair of lower level items. Also, you can retrain a single item into a split item. Finally, you can use your Retraining option from PH 28 to retrain an extra magic item instead of retraining a skill, power or feat.
Mounts: For the purpose of these rules, mounts count as a magic item of their level. The character can upgrade mounts to more powerful creatures as they gain levels, or add levels to the existing mount. Ignore the level requirements for mount special abilities.
Consumable Items: After first level, a character can also have a single consumable item (potion, ritual scroll, etc.) up to his level + 3. Alternately, he can have two consumable items of his current level, three consumable items of level – 3, four of level – 6 and so forth. These consumables can be replenished and changed freely between adventures. The DM may allow characters to acquire consumables in the middle of an adventure, so that they might get a ritual scroll of Water Breathing when they know they are going on an underwater adventure.
Rituals: Other than magic items, the other major cost expenditure in the 4th Edition D&D rules are for magic rituals. These rules allow ritual casting based on their level instead of giving them a component cost. Rituals are grouped into three categories, based on the ritual’s level and the caster’s level:
Hard: Rituals between the caster’s level and the caster’s level – 4.
Moderate: Rituals between the caster’s level – 5 and the caster’s level – 9.
Easy: Rituals less than or equal the caster’s level – 10.
For an 13th level caster, rituals level 9-13 are hard, 4-8 are moderate and 1-3 are easy.
A ritual caster starts with 2 rituals and gains 1 ritual per level. Wizards start with 3 rituals, gains 1 ritual per level plus a bonus ritual at the levels specified in his class description (5, 11, 15, 21, 25). The caster can only learn a ritual if he is trained in the key skill and if the ritual is not higher than his current level. You can retrain a ritual to another, equal-level ritual by using your retraining option when you advance a level. To reduce bookkeeping past a certain point, a caster knows a maximum of 11 hard and moderate rituals (a maximum of 14 for wizards) and automatically knows all easy rituals (those less than or equal to his level – 10) for the key skills in which he is trained.
A ritual caster can only cast 1 hard ritual per day. This limit is increased to 2 hard rituals at the paragon tier and 3 at the epic tier. A ritual caster can cast 1 moderate ritual per hour. A caster may exceed these limits by spending a healing surge, to cast a hard or moderate ritual sooner than he would normally be allowed. This is in addition to any healing surge cost for the ritual itself. A ritual caster can cast easy rituals as often as he likes, limited only by their casting time.
The caster does not need to spend any gold for the ritual’s component cost, but a caster needs special equipment to cast a ritual. If a caster is separated from his equipment, he cannot cast rituals. Any other ritual casting costs (such as healing surges) are still required.
The very expensive Raise Dead ritual is no longer allowed.
Mundane Equipment: Player characters can have whatever mundane equipment they want, within reason, even at first level. In practice, only bother to keep track of weapons and armor. You can assume that the player characters have whatever other reasonable adventuring gear they might need. You can also assume the PCs never run out of ammunition unless it is dramatically important.
Rationale: The goal of these rules is to eliminate the need to track treasure and to balance items between characters. These rules are roughly equivalent to the treasure parcels and the “Starting at Higher Level” rules in the DMG, p. 143. They assume that (a) treasure value is split evenly among the party, (b) it is devoted mainly to magic items and (c) the character’s sell off older and weaker items to cover their living expenses. Alternately, the characters are spending gold to upgrade their existing items’ magic. The rules simply abstract the entire treasure acquisition and magic item creation process.
An alternate rationale for these rules is that heroes naturally generate mystic energy that improves the items they possess. As they grow in power, they unlock new abilities in their items. These items are attuned to the hero and cannot be used by anyone else, because their source of power is the hero. This alternate rationale lets you have high-level, low-cash heroes that still have access to the magic items they need to be competitive. This means the greatest heroes in the world don’t necessarily have to be among the wealthiest individuals as well.
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I can understand creating such rules because you want to experience something different, but I can't say keeping track of ten "item slots" (not the same usage as the standard terminology) is less of a bookkeeping pain or that keeping track of gold is especially unheroic (or unparagon)... perhaps you started out easy and got carried away? 
