Permanent Death in an MMORPG

I've been watching the new anime "Sword Art Online" and it has me thinking about why more MMORPG's don't use permanent death as a feature, or even just an option. I know there must be a crowd out there who would play something like this. But maybe even the people who think they want a game like this, would quickly get frustrated and quit?

One of the most well known game series that gives players this option is Diablo, which gives players the option to make a "hardcore" character. The little experience that I have playing in hardcore mode showed me that there is a different type of satisfaction achieved when you kill a boss or complete a dungeon, knowing that you only have 1 life. At any moment, you may run into an overpowered demon and lose all of your progression. 

While this is fun in Diablo, I just don't think it achieves quite the same feeling an MMORPG would. Imagine standing in the capital city, as the group of heroes strolls in, who finally killed that dragon boss who has killed hundreds of players characters(or being one of those heroes yourself!). The sense of community would be unlike any other in my opinion. Obviously as a player you would have more attachment to the character you play, as the high risk of permanent death would make any accomplishment more meaningful.

Permanent death is not for everyone of course. Death in any RPG is expected. In difficult spots you learn through failure, and in most cases you die a lot. It's very possible that even the most avid supporter would quit the game after losing a character they had spent hundreds of hours on. I suppose this could be counter acted with account bound vanity items earned through a characters major accomplishments, but that still doesn't take away the monotony of repeating the leveling process through the starting areas. It also cant be argued that gameplay would slow down considerably due to players being much more cautious.

I can understand why a game these days would not exclusively feature permanent death, because it would alienate a large majority of potential gamers. As the video game industry has grown leaps and bounds, companies have had to consider a larger variety of opinions when making decisions for their games. Lets face it, hardcore gamers are the minority, and its understandable that a company would create a game that caters to a larger group of people. What I don't understand however, is why more games don't make it an option? A game like World of Warcraft has hundreds of servers, what harm would there be in opening one that features permanent death? Some things may have to be tweaked, but I think there is a chunk of gamers looking for something like this. 

After all is said and done, a game opening up a "hardcore" server would be great; but for this feature to truly shine a game would have to be designed around it. I hope some day "Sword Art Online" is made into a game, because I think the rule set meshes perfectly with permadeath. Chances are not good however, money is king, and chances are that a game like this would not appeal to a large enough audience. I hope I'm wrong though!