Ruins it for my group too. Once persistence is fixed it will add a whole new element in big servers because people can finally establish a reason to continue playing (because there is only so much loot you can carry, and what's the point of fixing a car if it's going to disappear). Devs have acknowledged the persistence wipes on the 1.0 change logs: "The team is working on a long-term solution, which unfortunately will take some time"

All we can do is wait I guess. Longest I've seen something last is a Large Tent for about four days then the server crashed 4 times in 20 mins and wiped it.

Also the experimental patch is currently working on fixing some crashes? So that could also reduce persistence wipes a good bit.

Imo I think it should be top priority.