are you sure it says "pickit" disabled and not "pickup" disabled?
it turns off pickup at the beginning of a run so it doesn't pick up any crap along the way to meph. if you ts some undead stygian dolls along the way and they drop some gold, it's not a good idea for the pickup to be turned on, unless you really want that 23 gold while the dolls stab your butt as you bend over to pick it up. pickup is enabled again as soon as you reach that circle in front of meph.