Unfortunately the problem becomes obvious fast. Anything hanging off of your natural silhouette becomes a complete pain in the ass at night where mobility and silence are king. Load bearing equipment has a bad habit of rubbing and making noise, plus it will snag on everything. Fences, windows, bushes, everything and at the most inopportune time.
This is where I'd like to suggest a completely different approach. Slim down your gear and eliminate all load bearing equipment for all but the most demanding operation.
For most of your equipment, this is trivial. Generally, your pockets can be dicey because things can fall out. We can fix this. The most obvious fix here is a pair of pants with reliable zippers in the hand pockets. There are rare, but if you have them congrats you're already set. We want to avoid cargo pants pockets here for the most part because they are too loose and take you right back into the issue of your shit banging around and raising your profile.
Instead, consider putting lanyards on all equipment with a basic loop and a mini carabiner at the end of the lanyard. This will allow you to place your equipment into your pockets and secure them to belt loops via lanyard. If you invest in a good CS* megafolder - a great investment - then you can even carry one of these in your pocket with a lanyard to secure it. Unlatch the carabiner if you suspect you may need to deploy at a moment's notice. For a pick pouch, consider something close fitting that can be worn in your back pocket like a wallet and similarly secured via lanyard. With the right gear, this prevent ANY mobility loss from equipment.
You should also consider a headlamp as your light source. They output sufficient light, often have multiple lighting modes, and take up less room than a traditional flashlight. I like to wear mine around my head with balaclava OVER the lamp so I can cover the lamp up with the mask material to prevent glare when out of use and catch the lamp in the event it comes off my head. You can also just pull the lamp off through the eye hole to use hand techniques for light direction. But if you want a more powerful torch, again this is an easy lanyard carry for your pockets that won't take up much space.
Let's return to cargo pants. I general I dislike using the actual cargo pockets for anything but they do have a couple uses. The quick easy one is using them to hold thicker glove shells if you're like me an use them over thinner gloves to prevent wear. The second trick is a little more sneaky and if you want to carry something a little more potent on your operations or just don't yet want to invest in a new folding knife (which you should eventually!) then you can use cargo pants to make everything nice and invisible-like.
The idea here is simple. Cut a hole through the actual pant wall inside the pocket so that when you're wearing them, you can reach down into your cargo pocket and touch your leg through the inside. Now, you can wear whatever you want in that spot in a drop leg pouch and nobody will be the wiser.
Another concept for you guys out there with the somewhat smaller fixed daggers would be to consider a concealed carry type method. A slimmer fitting sheath that can be worn inside the belt line rather than outside. This will draw the blade in closer, prevent snagging, and make it less visible in the event you are seen.
Do you wear boots on operations? Have you considered a lower profile hiking shoe style? You can often net the same ankle support and traction with a good pair while saving weight and increasing mobility. It does make a difference! I'm a huge fan of Danner here but shop around.
Back to gloves, how well do yours fit? Do you find you need to remove yours for fine tasks? Then consider nomex flight gloves. These fit skin tight on you, weigh nothing, and will maintain your identity protection while affording you maximum precision with picks.
With a proper fit of your gear you'll find operations so much more entertaining. Nobody wants to be fighting with their own equipment, you need to be focused on remaining unseen and exploring your surroundings.
* - SOG makes a good folding Pentagon as well for you SOG fanboys!
EDIT - The picture evidence!
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http://imgur.com/a/KtZYR
Hopefully this shows how much capacity you can carry without it even being noticeable. I could EDC this stuff and you'd never know even in the daytime, and I would be comfortable. The Rajah II is pretty huge, you normally wouldn't want to carry such a large fixed blade as demonstrated down the album as that sheathe will catch on everything and the knife is not concealed at all even under my t-shirt. And forget trying to carry it on something like the pictured Uncle Mike's duty belt as it would just make everything even worse. I would lean toward something more like the Voyager XL or Recon 1 XL for this kind of carry but I showed the Rajah II just to emphasize how effective this method can be.
The flashlight as you an see came with a lanyard, it's just a cheap aluminum LED light. Carrying it in this fashion, I have it in my left pocket and can pull it out and do a quick scan down low without even having to take it off the lanyard and yes, I'm easily able to bring most of my hand down in front of the bulb to direct the light as described in my flashlight manipulation topic.
The equipment with the duty belt is what everything looks like "conventionally" if you were to carry the same capacity equipment on the belt. Way more bulk and hassle. I put the equipment I'd lanyard right next to it to pronounce the difference even more.
Hope this clears the idea up!