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Most muds with any degree of quality have done the same. But it _is_ a very time consuming process, since good areas take a long time to produce.
For a new mud that still wanted to use a Diku derivate as codebase, I'd say there are three ways to go:
1. Don't open the mud for players until you have a unique world that is large enough to sustain a reasonable amount of gameplay. (The drawback to this is of course that it's more fun to work in a mud with players, and that it might be hard to attract competent help to a mud that is not open).
2. Start out with a selection of stock areas that fit your chosen theme, but gradually replace those with original areas. (As Valg already pointed out, there are some advantages to this, mainly that some players actually prefer stock, because they know their way around those areas. Also not all stock areas are crap, it's just that you have seen them too many times).
3. Use some kind of wilderness grid to get a fair size to start out with. These are quick to produce, the room descs can be set automatically by the code, and all you need to do is to add mobs and objects. Later the 'real' areas can be just connected to the grid gradually, as they get finished. (This is the solution I'd chose myself).
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