I know this thread hasn't been active just recently, but skimming through it, I noticed a couple of apparent misconceptions.
The old diku-style DT's wouldn't actually kill you. They were more or less a call to raw_kill(), which would extract your character to the main menu (as would a death), but wouldn't cost you experience points. In other words, it was an equipment recycler, more than anything.
That said, I think the use of DT's in a mud where equipment plays an important role, is annoying to the players, but benificial to the mud.
While I agree that a DT shouldn't just appear out of nowhere (the 'drop of a ledge' example above), I'd say that there doesn't have to be a big sign saying "YOU ARE SURE TO DIE IF YOU GO SOUTH". I've seen an example using an airlock. When you closed the door you enterd by, two short messages flashed (water is rising around your feet.... around your body), giving the player a couple of seconds to make sure they had waterbreath on - or teleport out, before the you drowned. It was a great place to run and hide, if you were being followed. After the water filled the room, anyone entering without waterbreath would start drowning, too. Needless to say, this was a PK mud, and portals were prone to catch up with you, eventually, if you didn't hide out in smart places (such as off the cliff, in your previous replies).
In the same mud were also 'delayed' DT's (a particular loft in the old city of Thalos springs to mind), which gave you just about enough time to read the description and act, before they 'killed' you.
Well, enough ramlbing.
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