> It seems you only had exposure to a limited set of MUDs that died quickly

Limited set, yes. I was never a hardcore player. I would drop in for some months, then disappear again for months as I had other things going on in my life.

Quickly, no. Some of the MUDs are still running today (as I mentioned) but my in and out nature made the dramatic changes more obvious. I would spend the summer away doing something, and come back to discover someone new had worked their way into the admin staff and was stirring the pot at every opportunity. One time I came back and the MUD was taken offline because the staff was infighting so much about it.

> But things such as "grind down everyone" can only happen if the rules are broken and the code is broken really. I also highly doubt that players were the primary "until the rest of the community stopped playing" as a problem

I'm not pretending my experience was common to all MUDs because I didn't play a large number. However the ones I did play eventually succumbed to admin and staff drama.

Your assumption is backwards: It wasn't the people breaking rules who were causing problems. It was the people who were making rules. Some of them came up with increasingly specific things that were decided to be against an ever longer list of rules, which became the weapon which they could wield against anyone they didn't like. Temporary bans and restrictions were handed out selectively to their political adversaries.