If they do decide to take these items from pax at the gate then i would assume this would be handled in the same way as they do for the LAG's going to Australia etc. They would be placed inside cardboard boxes and sealed with those dodgy little plastic tags after having a manual bag tag slapped on it. Once aircraft side they would be loaded in to the respective First Class units (as AUS/NZ flights were connectors previously).
This in itself would tell you there would be a problem in terms of space for them to be loaded due to expected quantities. We all know that EK do not allow DG to be loaded in the bulk hold so i would assume these would also be considered as such (again why the LAG's are loaded into the First class units).
The next point is that they will probably get thrown down the chute along with the rest of the gate collected hand baggage. So expect multiple claims for damage through this practice.
Last but not least, tracking of these pieces would not be great to start with. As of recent times, all gate bags were meant to be scanned and recorded as loaded against whatever ULD they were physically loaded in to, much the same as your standard checked in bag over in the build up areas. The main issue here is that at the aircraft side the connectivity for the PDA devices is practically non-existent. This means that there is no real record of every piece being loaded. There is no manual recording process as the EK gate team keep the peel offs from when they tag a piece but do not reconcile it against a passenger name/sequence number etc.
Should one of these pieces go missing then i think you would have to write it all off but because of there being virtually no record of it being 'received' at the aircraft side then the airline would probably wash their hands and say they never even accepted it in the first place.