Perhaps Jiles, but you neglect the ooc cheating element. It's easily possible for a buncha buddies to help each other's chars get good and then rule the mud with an iron fist, including killing off any newbies who seem to be getting powerful quickly so their power can't be challenged. And in a system like this, lower skilled chars tend to prefer sucking up to the big guns rather than trying to overthrow them.
This is why in the mud I'm helping with, there'll be positions for gods, filled by people trusted not to totally unbalance the mud. So if it gets to a point where some faction of mortals controls the entire mud, a god could easily take action to rebalance it, whether by causing an earthquake, punishing their followers for being such asses, or backing someone else who doesn't like the way things are going. This is the only way I can think of to lessen the benefits of ooc cheating such that people stop doing it, the problem being of course that with gods running around, the mortals will feel powerless even if they happen to be kings. But oh well, we still have a long time left to develop it all to what it should be.
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