The reason UO will never be re-created is that it was the first game of it's kind and thus every player had only one option. In modern times, the gamer population is so bifurcated that I'm not sure it'll ever be possible to have such a mix of player types in a single unforgiving ecosystem.
MMOs are still stuck with the concept of permanently undamagable items that can be worth hundreds of in-game hours because of insanely low drop rates.
If items had a finite lifespan and you could replace them quickly like in Minecraft, then the downside of losing your items would be far more acceptable.
This is also the reason why MMO economies tend toward deflation. Players craft thousands of food items that never perish and just pile up in some auction house or automated market place.
If every player sold their items when they quit there would be more items than players.
Or towards hyperinflation when the currency generation out paces any sinks thus driving the price levels to outright stupid levels, with only limiting factor being what players can hold and trade.
This is exactly what happened in Diablo 2. You had a gold limit, and the value for gold was so low that players began using Stone of Jordan rings as currency for other item trades.
