I've noticed that when right clicking on a weapon in the inventory will replace a currently held weapon (as it should be), but the same effect does not apply to replacing a shield/tome with another shield/tome, or replacing a weapon with a shield/tome and visa versa. It's a matter of convenience, because I like to switch out my melee weapons for tomes whenever I use the crossbow, or sometimes I will get an artifact weapon/shield/tome with trap affinity that I keep on hand whenever I come across traps, but I have to fiddle with the interface every time. Could a right click on any of these types of items just swap out whichever item is in your right hand? (Possibly a toggle for left/right hand priority, if there is anybody out there that prefers their character be left handed)
I agree that right-clicking on a shield/orb/tome should replace the current shield/orb/tome, but switching out weapons for tomes would likely be more problematic, interface implementation wise; tomes are considered a type of shield so you would need a way to specify that you want to replace your weapon rather than your shield.