Thanks for playing and for the comment! Yes, the controls and feedback definitely didn't get the love we wanted to give it.
If you want to try again, my advice would be to move straight up while holding the required item and have the sprite stuck against the top of the bag. Then wait until the hero is a few steps away from the beam of light to drop the item and move to the side or back down (the item doesn't actually drop until you move off of the place you dropped it). The item will slowly fall, but it takes a few seconds for it to fall out of the top two rows (this is the area where the hero's hand can pick up items).