Help controlling player wealth

[kigmatzomat]

I am trying to run a by the book campaign. But no matter what I do it seems like the amount of gear they carry gets way out of kilter compared to the DMG guidelines for wealth at their character level.

I think the root of the problem is that they scoop up the wealth fallen of PCs -- the ones the players have give up on when they decide to try something else after dying....
Take a run of the mill 9th level character. 36k in wealth. Raise a him a few times, regenerate a limb, cure insanity, then give up on him. Even after all those costs it is a net inflow of cash into the party that rapidly adds up. Repeat this a few dozens of times and what do you have? A very, very wealthy party!

I see a mistake. First, don't let non-dead adventurer's gear be divvied up. If the character is given up on, he wanders away with his stuff. Second, what kind of sick-o adventurer doesn't get his buddy raised from the dead? This at least reduces the leftover wealth by the cost of a raise dead, even if the character doesn't come back.

Then you get into character connections. Religious characters should leave a good chunk of their stuff to their order, if for no other reason than to ensure they get a good seat in the afterlife. Why wouldn't the good party members ship back gold & valued to the fallen hero's family? Face it, a few magic items is enough for most people to retire on.

Then stop giving out full character wealth for new PCs. This forces some redistribution within the group. Of course I don't allow players to start with total selection of their gear. I let them choose about 60% of full wealth and then roll for a couple of items. They can either keep the items or sell them for half and buy other items.

You can also change their encounters for a while. When my PCs are too rich I switch to loot-free monsters for a level or so. Lots of non-sentient creatures are devoid of treasure.

Then there's the wonderfully evil stuff you can do, like send Giants with Sunder after them.