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This is, simply, untrue. The best PvP systems usually work one of two ways...
A) There is a stat/level limit you can reach via mob-bashing/questing/etc, and once you reach that limit, you are(more-or-less) "maxed" out statwise. The equipment gathered is gatherable by anyone, and it doesn't take a year of consistant gaming to reach your max power(rather it takes a few months for the devote gamer, tops). Then, the skill-based PVP is on a level playing field, because your opponents are, largely, equal to you and it is about using what you've got to win.
B) MOB-Bashing takes little time to reach max, or better yet; the system is a level-less one. You start out(or achieve quickly) with the skills you need to begin PvP, largely, and the rest of them you earn(or buy) through PvP itself. Using either a classic tier system, or pk-range-restrictions keeps PvP from being about who has the most kills and allows all players to consistantly grow. MUDs like Everwar and Utopia utilize this system well.
Pay-for-Perk PvP MUDs, like IRE games, work like this;
C) Reaching a maximum "level" from mob-bashing/questing/etc will only allow you to learn a certain amount of skills, to a certain level of proficiency. After that, it is necessary for someone, somewhere to pay cash in order to buy credits. The exception of winning artistic contests does not nullify this point - you are required to sell the rights of your contest piece in exchange for credits. Credits become the primary way of learning skills, so the people with the most credits become the most powerful ones. The only ones who can compete with the highest buyers are the ones who have played for the longest time. You can say that talent means more than bought skillsets, but this is a silly point. I've played one IRE for a lengthier time period in particular and remember it going something along these lines:
As someone who had a pair of maxed skills(without paying real cash for the credits I'd managed to get), I could indeed defeat people who had used more bought credits and had more maxed skills than me. If they were newbies and untalented PvPers. People who were closer to my own level of ability, who had bought more credits and had more skills/etc than me had an obvious advantage over me, and often-times no amounts of trickiery/talent would allow me to break into the most upper fold, unless I was able to spend innane amounts of time there(or money). I decided to focus on other, more balanced MUDs I was PvPing on at the time.
It's the way the system is set up. It is designed so that people have to buy credits to achieve higher levels of competition. Capitalistically, it is quite savvy - you promote your MUD as being more intense/challenging in PvP than it actually is, use commonly popular features and high asthetics to draw in a large playerbase, then make the aforementioned PvP be competitive only to those who can afford to buy credits. As KaVir has said, it does not matter how you get credits in the game; someone, somewhere paid for them. And the PvP, however asthetically pleasing, is still bland enough that success is largely playerfile-based(again, unless you're a weak PvPer). And the best playerfiles go to the ones with the most credits.
Now, this is not putting down the pay-for-perks model. Honestly, I'd never toot the horn of PvP on a MUD that required cash-bought-credits to be competitive - but, that's just me. The model itself is fine, however, and quite successful. Misleading advertising, and backdooring around voting rules(to drop even a small reference to the thread's actual topic) is not fine. To me, it's close to being on the same level of breaking free codebase licenses. It is the reason why the word 'unethical' is used so much when referring to MUDs focused on in these topics.
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