hoi, maybe i can help with models, but i'm a novice, bout the making a guy picks up a sword:
open the abbility editor, copy the "item armor bonus" or some other simple ability and make it does nothing, then look for "art-target" and set it to the model u want to attach, then go under it, to "art-target attachement point" and set it to the attachement point u want(hand,right; hand,left; head; chest; origin; and some others, those are the ones i know)
then add that ability to the item u want and voila, u have a pickable sword