I've always thought it silly that a PC goes from conscious and fighting to unconscious with nothing in between (except the occasional critical hit saying foe is down or something).
Sure, being at zero, sends our hero to the ground unable to FIGHT or cast spells. But why can't our hero make feeble dying gestures, mutter, groan, talk, point, etc? Seems absolutely perfectly reasonable to me. In fact, I've always assumed that unless a critical hit renders the character unconscious, characters downed by hits are, in fact, conscious, just no longer able to concentrate sufficiently to use any skills/spells/items or move beyond a crawl. But that's me...
Robin