[ArchPrime]

Okay, lets back up the assumption wagon a bit, here. Who says "Throw away decades of feature development"? Actually, what are those decades of features you're not interested in throwing away? I have no idea how creating some new standards by which client developers and server developers should adhere to is a step backwards. Substitute "create" with "adopt" and it's still something else....an addition... an evolution. Which would you prefer? A standard way to display, skin, and control a status bar which would work in all clients that support the standard or come up with your own protocol, select a client, write a plugin for it, and call it a day? In the former, your game will provide the experience you want your players to feel, across all clients(hey! Minimal work for you as a server dev). In the later, your game will provide the experience you want your players to feel in only that one client, and only if they installed your *custom* plugin (Hey! Lots of work for you if you want broad client use).

I guess this does illustrate a major problem: coming up with standards and more importantly, getting client and server developers to implement/conform to said standards. I'm guessing its not gonna happen. That's why I said "that's where it needs to end:..." --- because the real standard is simply telnet. If you want to offer more, then you're free to with your own custom coding/client/plugin/control/mind bending technology/widgeting-ding-a-ling.

It would be cool to see what features are important to players --- and why. Same for developers. You might find that some of those current client features which represent decades of feature development become obsolete when replaced with standards and proper UI elements.

Whatever the case, I'm feeling like a broken record. There are blatant, obvious reasons MUD devs are creating custom clients for their games... and that reason is not hubris.