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No, the "general attitude" is that a mud which specifically caters to the masses will sacrifice quality in order to attain quantity - and that isn't a phenomenon unique to muds.
Which would you rather add - a groundbreaking technical feature which was unnoticable from a players perspective, or a new "ninja" class which would attract a few new players? The answer depends on your personal priorities.
A commercial mud, by it's very nature, has to reorganise those priorities - it's no longer a hobby, but a business. It might be nice to add a "cool new feature", but if it doesn't add anything to the gameplay then (from a business point of view) it's probably not worth adding - particularly not when you could spend that time developing something which will improve your profits (and for a commericial mud, "players = profit").
Some free muds have a similar attitude, although this is not always the case - but there is certainly some disdain towards those who (as you put it) "sell out" by catering to the players at the expense of their original vision. I suppose you could compare that to the "ex-underground singer" who changes the words in his song to avoid offending people, or shortens the song to fit in a commercial break at the end, or changes his clothes to something more "socially acceptable", etc.
For many of us developing muds as a hobby, the fun comes from pushing the boundries of what has been done before. Innovation is the goal, and the playerbase is just something that happens on the way. For a commercial mud (unless it has very poor business management) the goal is to get a large playerbase, and any innovations are just stepping stones to get there.
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