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Moderator Edit: Enough with the back-and-forth with ShadowMaster.
The graphics are a double-edged sword, however - graphical muds tend to attract a lot of initial interest, but most people I know who play them will move on to something flashier when it comes along. And graphics tend to become dated quite quickly...
No, although I know several of my friends who used to mud now play games like EverQuest and World of Warcraft. On the flipside, several of my players have said they've just come back to mudding, having gotten tired of graphical muds.
The first and second points also apply to commercial text-based muds to a lesser extent - the overhead of operating a text-based game is going to be lower, particularly in regard to generating new content. In turn, a lower overhead means you need fewer players to break even (compare the number of players in a typical commercial text-based mud to that of a commercial graphical mud).
I'm not convinced about the third point, either - there are text-based muds that charge monthly fees at the same rate as the graphical muds. There is also at least one graphical mud (Guild Wars) that uses the pay-for-perks model. And I wouldn't be surprised to see hobbyist graphical muds in the future, either.
There are some things that I don't think a graphical mud will ever handle as well, and certain audiences (blind players, those mudding from school or university, etc) who are unable to play such games. Sure, some mudders leave to play the graphical muds - but many return, and often bring friends with them who would never normally have encountered muds. The rise of the large commercial graphical muds has actually provided a lot of publicity for text-based muds.
Graphical muds have been around since 1985, and yet text-based muds are still going strong. I doubt you'll see much change in the foreseeable future.
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