If locked chests are in the wild, these can be unlocked by staff after a period of time of inactivity (30d), to give the player who owns the chest time to collect their items/prevent them from being stolen, even if it's in unclaimed land. If a player is kicked from a party/town, they're to be given 14 days to collect their items, again to ensure the fairest outcome for all players.
We have more information about this in the
server rules. I honestly can't ever see the feature being removed as a whole. I think there are far more benefits to players having the feature than there are downsides.