No save allowed during story missions = epic fail

Did I say I was against them adding a quick save?  No, I didn't say that.  A quick save would be great.  I enjoyed having it in ME3.  Stopping played to make a save, however, is not any more immersion breaking than stopping to read a codex entry or level up or swap out armor collected while looting or any other number of game mechanics that are used.  As for exactly what buttons... that's something I'd leave totally up to the developer.  I'm sure they are aware of what buttons and combinations of buttons are still available to them on the console controllers.  I don't play on a PC so I don't care what they come up with for you guys... you can easily remap all your buttons anyways.

Technically, looting in ME1 involved using the decryption or electronics hacking game.  The enemy drops were automatic.  I do like it when enemy drops get added to the player's inventory automatically... but some RPG players would rather role play at scouring the battlefield, I guess.  Anything, I thought RotTR handled it nicely by allow each player to choose which way they wanted the game to handle it.  If the player wanted automatic enemy drops, they only needed to assign a skill point to that option to activate it.  Alternatively, even a toggle in the main game menu would work as well.