I dunno if my group likes this or not, but when I DM I give NPC's equal cash as a PC for items and the same stats (and usually a few more levels but thats to make CR equivalent). I guess they'd get more gear but they can never seem to beat those NPC's without them getting away. Maybe this is why haha. I guess if they do they get a lot of items, but they usually only get whats on the cohorts/monsters cause of this. One of those things I don't think about when making NPC's