None of the products you bring up are MUDs, either text or graphical (I'll grant that some tend to feel Guild Wars is a MUD, though I don't).
If you want to go the AAA route, that's cool. There is no such thing as a AAA MUD that doesn't include non-development support staff.
If you want to go the text MUD route, my bet is that there are no large (say, 250+ simultaneous players) that don't have non-development staff working to improve the player experience.
I'm also not sure why you equate providing service with, as you put it so open-mindedly, "a bunch of gods giving out orders and making you follow obscure and arbitary guidelines."
Given that exactly none of the non-development support staff in any of the world's biggest MUDs do that, the example is a straw-man.
--matt
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