Stepping back a bit @Nick-Hall, this idea of Item is really about that of introducing a top level research subject that represents any inanimate physical object of possible genealogical or historical interest. Perhaps it is a ship several of your ancestors immigrated on and you want to research the history of when the ship was built, when it was decommissioned, and so forth. Perhaps it is a house a few generations of your family lived in and you want to trace the history of it and perhaps the owners to the present day.
In that same vein, I would like to see a similar top level Group object as a research subject as well. A Group might be a church many of your family attended, a fraternal organization or benevolent society or trade guild some of your ancestors belonged to, a household on a census with multiple families living in it including one of yours where the others might be relatives but you simply do not know yet. And of course in the end Family is just a special case of a Group.
Yes these things can be documented in notes, but I think there is benefit in being able to treat them as top level research subjects in their own right and I think many of our users would find them useful. Can you please give this some more thought?