I'm still amazed and amused by this infantile attitude...
There's nothing wrong with the concept of "permadeath" if it worked equally well, regardless of character development. As far as I know, it doesn't.
Taking pride in one's skill is not reprehensible if the degree of skill does not lie in access to better tools (scripts, bots, custom clients).
Complaining about a dwindling player base is stupid when you get joy out of killing noobs out of control. If the mechanics of the game do not foresee any potentially tangible responsibility for the action, then its perpetrator is no different from a spoiled brat, whose mommy will make sure that the consequences pass.
It is interesting what couch philosophers and Machiavelli quoters would say if an analogue of the "great equalizer" appeared in the game mechanics, which would actually destroy the principles of the game of communal domination. Then we could talk about the superiority of the individual, not in the current purgatory between feudalism and communism. But then I suppose one would probably cry about wrong evolution.