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Personally, I find bashing (at times) to be somewhat meditative in that it is indeed as mindless as you described, yet somehow I find it relaxing to search for the orc, kill orc, move on.
That being said, the question is what are players going to be doing in your MUD. If you expect only chatting, socializing and RP, then you have a MUSH/MOO and don't really need anything more. But if you do want something more, you'll have to invest in quests. Probably a lot of quests.
You'll have to figure out how to make quests somewhat dependent on a player's level or progression. In other words, if you have no bashing (which is a fairly basic litmus test for players to guage their level), you'll want to find some other way of rewarding players who invest in completing quests (perhaps you can only do quest B after completing quest A) so there is some competition. To this end, you may want to think of skills you acquire that are basically needed to complete certain quests. After all, a player who is a fighter wants to use his fighting skills, etc., so skills useable in quests would impel players to do the quests. (For instance, you need the skill of librarian in order to find certain books, etc.)
Finally, you'll have to constantly be adding quests--after all, when someone completes all the quests, what's the point in staying unless new quests come along.
In any event, I agree that a little bit of everything makes for a succesful MUD (bashing, questing, rp'ing, etc.). I will note that exploring in and of itself won't draw many people unless it is coupled with quests or bashing, so even the most intricate and largest maps are rendered meaningless without at least one.
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