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For roleplaying muds and H&S muds both, I find nothing keeps players involved more than inter-player conflict. Your high level players might have maxed their stats out, but if there's some kind of rival clan or group of the same power that they can fight with, they'll probably stick around for a while. Fighting with players, be it through RP or combat, is a lot more fun than fighting with an NPC.
Give people other goals aside from just gaining levels and getting stronger, too. Let them build houses or castles or countries, let them hire/train armies to fight for them, let them go to war with other players over areas.
Another thing is not to neglect your veteran players. A lot of times when a player has been playing your game for a year or two, he has a lot of good ideas for how to improve the game you can use. Make them feel included, listen to their ideas and value their input even if you wouldn't have thought of those things yourself. A lot of times I think the biggest factor is causing a veteran player to leave a game is that they decided the staff didn't like them or didn't appreciate them.
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