How to retain players eqipped items upon death?

I've released a CraftBukkit plugin called DropProtect which does almost exactly what you're looking for. It protects all Armor slots (Helmet, Chestplate, Leggings, and Boots) as well as the 9 hotbar slots by default. It is configurable, so you can change the number of slots that are protected.

Before and after death with 9 protected-slots (covers the hotbar + armor):

Output of the /dropprotect command with 12 protected-slots:

Let me know if you have any questions :)

You can download DropProtect at https://github.com/pavben/Bukkit-DropProtect.

Such a plugin doesn't exist.

You're better off asking for someone to make one here: http://forums.bukkit.org/forums/plugin-requests.13/

You might consider the plugin Death Control - http://dev.bukkit.org/bukkit-plugins/deathcontrol/

It is configurable to have player keep items on death among other things like XP. If it doesn't exactly work the way you want it to, the developer may be able to add your idea as a feature. It looks like it's for 1.6.4 but in my experience many bukkit plugins manage to work across game versions unless they are affected by new updates.

If all else, let me know, the API for inventory and death events are simple enough. http://jd.bukkit.org/rb/doxygen/d9/d20/enumorg_1_1bukkit_1_1event_1_1inventory_1_1InventoryType_1_1SlotType.html I could probably write this plugin in 15-20 minutes time.