It's not useless because indefinite means never. At least this will require police departments to define the time and therefore make it less likely the stuff walks off, which will encourage keeping it for shorter periods of time.
A good ruling would be "by default zero time is allowed, ask a judge for exceptions when justified". If you release the person, release all their possessions at the same time. Need an exception? Make it the burden on police to convince a judge this is justified, not let it to the police to arbitrarily do whatever they want - like 14 months, now reduced to what, 13.9? (exaggeration for a good purpose).
Likely someone with lawyers could get that lowered to nothing and as a layman that feels like a feature not a bug.
I wouldn't be so sure. Cops have implicit prosecutorial attorneys too that have a lot more experience with such cases than do defense attorneys.
There is no substitute for clarity in law. All else opens the door to exploitation and selective application, both of which are a mockery of justice.
If the definition of the word “reasonable” was left in the other half then sure.
It’s the job that of the court to define what is “reasonable” on a case by case basis and establish a precedent. They can’t start coming up with laws themselves that clearly establish universal and specific limits.