looting by not looting; relying on the Postmaster- is it viable?

[JohnGabriel]

This might be a stupid question, but since when does the postmaster send you items? The only times that I received anything from the postmaster was when the loot was soulbound or if there was an epic/rare in a raid/dungeon boss. Oh, and also when there is some kind of special currency as apexis crystals or resources. Aside from that items do not seem to be sent to me.

That is exactly what OP was talking about. You receive all the BoE/BoP gear in your mailbox, so how much are you losing by leaving all the vendor trash and gold?

[MiRai]

How much gold would 5 man boxers lose % wise if they never looted but were mailed missed loot by the postman?

There's no way anyone can answer that question with any relative accuracy—it's just way too open ended. However, it's unclear which version of the game you're interested in when asking the question, because you're interested in Classic, but are currently practicing in Retail. So, if this pertains to Classic, then I doubt the Postmaster will be sending you anything other than mail from other characters (or, in the rare occurrence, a GM).

[CMKCot]

That is exactly what OP was talking about. You receive all the BoE/BoP gear in your mailbox, so how much are you losing by leaving all the vendor trash and gold?

This is incorrect.

you do not receive BOEs on the mail, greens, blues or purps, nothing. you don't even receive Gold. any BOE drop not looted will be lost.

the only cases where you will get BOEs is when the item/currency was granted by an event that couldn't complete. for example phasing out of a container after it was opened, of completing a quest as you zone out, etc.

you only get soulbound items, and when you do they are fully bound (no blue text)

not looting could only work with an absurd ammount of alts, farming a place like throne on taanan jungle. you get the BOP spheres, you can trade them for mats at the trader. but there's no way in hell anyone would buy enough mats to make it worthwhile.

no real point on calculating it, the answer is clear, it doesn't work. any place that can be farmed forever has no Bound drops, only BOEs that wont get mailed. the system of no BOEs on mail is there to prevent AFK farming, been so since the mail system for lost items was added, sometime around late wrath, i think the automated system was added with the LFG tool, the old system wasn't automated.

its the same reason pets didn't tap mobs, so if they killed a mob without you damaging it you got nothing. they changed that on legion for some obscure reason, and in theory pets can be used to afk farm now. but my guess that if they removed the pet tap limitation its because they implemented some other method of detection. and you WILL get banned for AFK actions, such as leaving a keyboard macro running for hours.